Cohesion and Coherence Final version

22 speaking, reading, and writing. Listening might be taught as primarily „passive‟ „receptive‟ or „input‟ skills, whilst speaking and writing are their „active‟ „productive‟ or „output‟ counterparts.” Consequently, in the field of teaching and learning, the mastery of reading skill naturally precedes the mastery of writing skill. Therefore, students are supposed to be taught how to read first before they start learning how to write. In fact, the teaching of four skills cannot be completely separated. In accordance to this, Brown 2001 stated: “Despite our history of treating the four skills in separate segments of a curriculum, there is a recent trend toward skill integration. That is, rather than designing a curriculum to teach the many aspects of one skill, say, reading, curriculum designers are taking more of a whole language approach whereby reading is treated as one of two or more interrelated skills. A course that deals with reading skills, then, will also deal with related listening, speaking, and writing skills.” Therefore, the teaching of writing skill cannot be separated from the teaching of other skills, especially reading skill. Reading is the foundation of writing. For that reason, reading and writing skills are often put together as one package known as the written cycle. Ideally, reading tasks precede writing tasks as through reading a certain type of text, learners grasp the knowledge of the field. This knowledge of the field later will be manifested in their writing. Accordingly, the teaching of writing skill is integrated with reading skill as well, as framed in the Genre-Based Approach.

b. Teaching Writing in Junior High School

Teaching English as a foreign language TEFL refers to teaching English to students whose first language is not English. In Indonesia, English is taught as a foreign language. The purpose of English language teaching in Indonesia is to 23 equip students with acknowledgement of the language so that they are able to use English in their life. Due to the importance of English learning, English is taught as a compulsory subject in secondary schools BSNP, 2006. According to Indonesian curriculum BSNP, 2006, there are four skills that Indonesian students have to perform in learning English —listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In addition, there are four literacy levels that the curriculum expects from Indonesian students to perform in all the skills —performative, functional, informational, and epistemic. While the students of elementary schools are expected to reach performative level, those of junior high schools are projected to reach functional literacy levels. The English proficiency target of the junior high school students is the ability to use the language in their daily life. The government through the Ministry of Education has set the standards for the teaching of writing in grade seven of junior high schools BNSP, 2006 as cited from the regulation about the standard of competence and basic competence of English learning below. Standard of competence 12. To express meanings in short functional texts and short essays in the form of descriptive and procedure texts in order to interact with the surroundings. Basic Competence 12.2 To express meanings and rhetorical structures of short essays using written expressions accurately, fluently, and appropriately in order to interact with the surroundings through descriptive and procedure texts. Table 1.Standard of Competence and Basic Competence