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Next is intensive or controlled writing. In this writing category, students must be able to not only write words, punctuation, and brief sentences but also
produce proper vocabulary based on context, collocations and idioms, and also grammatical features within a sentence. At this stage, appropriateness and
correctness are easily determined if students pay attention to meaning and context. However, form is still the main concern in intensive writing as most assessment
tasks more focus on it and are still strictly controlled by test design. The third type is responsive writing. Here, students can start to do
something more complicated that involves writing at a limited discourse level. In this stage, they will try to connect sentences into a paragraph and link one
paragraph to another in a sequence. There are many writing genres which can be classified into responsive writing and those are brief descriptions and narratives,
brief responses to reading, summaries, short reports, lab reports, and interpretations of graphs or charts. Students must have mastered all the
fundamental skills in this stage so they can be more focused on the discourse conventions. In conclusion, the focus is still on form but is more concerned about
the discourse level which means it strongly involves context and meaning. The last category is extensive writing. When students reach this point, it
means that they have successfully applied and managed all the writing processes and strategies for all purposes. Many types of writing which can be put into this
category are essays, term papers, reports of research project, or even theses. The focuses on this type of writing are to achieve a purpose, organize and generate
ideas logically, use supporting details, show lexical and syntactic variety, and
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draft in order to complete a final product. At this stage, grammatical form is less of a concern. It will only resurface occasionally in some editing or proofreading.
d. Micro- and Macroskills of Writing
Micro- and macroskills are nothing strange anymore especially for teachers. Those things will help them defining the most suitable standard to assess
their students. Based on the explanation above about many types of writing performance, microskills are more appropriate for tasks that involve imitative and
intensive writing while macroskills will be more related to responsive and extensive writing.
In conclusion, microskills will deal with the mechanics of writing like orthography, writing speed, word choices, grammar, cohesive devices, etc.,
whereas macroskills will deal a lot with more complex stuff such as rhetorical forms and conventions, communicative functions, links and connections between
events, literal versus implied meanings, culturally specific references, battery of writing strategies, and so forth.
The micro- and macroskills of writing proposed by Brown 2004: 221. Microskills
1. Produce graphemes and orthography patterns of English.
2. Produce writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose.
3. Produce an acceptable core of words and use appropriate word order
patterns. 4.
Use acceptable grammatical systems e.g. tense, agreement, pluralization, patterns, and rules.
5. Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms.
6. Use cohesive devices in written discourse.
Macroskills 7.
Use the rhetorical forms and conventions of written discourse. 8.
Appropriately accomplish the communicative functions of written texts according to form and purpose.
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9. Convey links and connections between events, and communicate such
relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization, and exemplification.
10. Distinguish between literal and implied meanings when writing.
11. Correctly convey culturally specific references in the context of
written text. 12.
Develop and use a battery of writing strategies, such as accurately assessing the audience’s interpretation, using prewriting devices,
writing with fluency in the first drafts, using paraphrases and synonyms, soliciting peer and instructor feedback, and using feedback
for revising and editing.
2. Teaching Writing in English Foreign Language Classroom
Teaching especially teaching writing in English foreign language classroom may seem easy for some people particularly the native speakers of
English. However, it will feel a lot harder for non-native teachers who are also learning English in the process while they are teaching it to the students.
a. Definition of Teaching
According to Brown 2000: 7 teaching is guiding and facilitating learning, enabling the learner to learn, and setting the conditions for learning. This means
that teaching is not just passing knowledge and information to other human beings. It is leading, assisting, and making it possible for the learners to learn,
including creating conducive atmosphere for studying. Based on its process, teaching not only has to be done right but also
effectively. Blum cited in Richard and Renandya 2002: 21 provides a comprehensive list on effective teaching characteristics that includes giving clear
and focused instruction , monitoring students’ progress, using class time properly,
having positive interpersonal skills with students, using rewards to encourage students, and so on.
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b. Teaching English for Junior High School Students
There are four literacy levels of language and those are performative, functional, informational, and epistemic BSNP, 2006: 277. On the performative
level, students have to be able to read, write, listen, and speak using shared symbols. On the functional level, students need to be capable of using language to
meet their daily needs such as reading newspaper or manuals. On the informational level, students must be able to access knowledge with their
language competency. Meanwhile, on the epistemic level, students will have to be able to express knowledge into the target language.
Hartoyo 2011: 63 in his handout states that English language teaching in junior high school is usually aimed at assisting students to achieve the functional
level of language literacy. They are expected to be capable of using English to communicate both in spoken and written way to accomplish their daily needs.
He further explains that the goals or purposes of English language teaching in junior high school are:
1. Developing communicative competence in spoken and written language
to reach functional literacy. 2.
Generating awareness about the nature and importance of English to improve nation’s competitiveness in global society.
3. Developing students’ understanding about the relationship between
language and culture. Teaching English in junior high school will focus more on teaching
students communication skills in English through important language skills such as speaking and writing. The thing one has to remember is that making sure the
students all pass the National Examination UN is never the goal of English language teaching or any other teaching activities in junior high school. This, of
