2. Teaching Writing
a. Teaching Writing in Junior High School
In general, teaching cannot be separated from the regulations established by the government. All the teaching activities have to
obey the laws of education. This also occurs in teaching English. In Indonesia, English is taught from elementary school to senior high
school. The levels of students, the background, the aims and scopes of teaching English are also different.
In Junior High School, according to BSNP or Badan Standar Nasional Pendidikan 2006, students are targeted to master the
functional level – communicating written and oral language to solve daily problems. In addition, according to BSNP, teaching English
has some aims. They are: 1 Developing communication competence in the form of oral or
written to achieve functional level of literacy. 2 Having awareness of the nature and the importance of English to
increase competitiveness in the world. 3 Developing students understanding about the relationship
between language and culture. Recently, there are two curriculums that are implemented in
Indonesia. Some schools are using 2013 Curriculum Kurikulum 2013 and the others are still implementing School-Based
Curriculum Kuriulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidkan or Kurikulum
2006. Related to this, SMP N 4 Sleman is managed to use School- Based Curriculum. The curriculum consists of standard competence
and basic competence. The standard competence and basic competence for writing skill in class 8 semester 2 is explained in the
following table.
Table 1: The Standard Competence and Basic Competence of SMP and MTs at Grade VIII in Semester Two
Skill Standard Competence
Basic Competence
Writing 12. Expressing meaning in written functional text and
simple essay in the form of recount and narrative to
interact with the closest environment.
12.1 Expressing meaning in
simple written
functional text by using various written language
accurately and fluently to interact with the closest
environment. 12.2 Expressing meaning
and rhetorical step in simple short essay using
various written language accurately and fluently to
interact with the closest environment in the form
of recount and narrative text.
From the table above, there are two text types that have to be learned at grade VIII in the second semester. They are recount text
and narrative text. Then, there are some aspects that feature a recount text. Board
of Studies 2007b, in Hyland 2009: 87, states that the social purpose of story recount text is to tell a sequence of events so that it
entertains the readers. It also mentions some general features of recount text. The lists are as follows:
1 Structure Recounts are organized to include:
a an orientation providing information about ‘who’, ‘where’ and ‘when’;
b a record events recounted in chronological order; c personal comments andor evaluative remarks, which are in
the middle of the record of the events; d a reorientation, which completes the sequence of events.
2 Grammar Common grammatical patterns of a recount include:
a use of nouns and pronouns to identify people, animals, or things involved;
b use of the action verbs to refer to events; c use of past tense to locate events in relation to speaker’s or
writer’s time; d use of conjunctions and time connectives to sequence the
events; e use of adverbs and adverbial phrases to indicate place and
time; f use of adjective to describe nouns.
In short, according to Kurikulum 2006, there are two types of text which are narrative and recount text that have to be learned by
students of grade 8 in the second semester. In writing a recount text, students need to write the text with the appropriate structure and
grammar feature as required.
b. Students’ Characteristics
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