Observing student´s syntactic errors and the perceptions towards writing in the composition cours

Abstract

The aim of this article is to observe the improvement reached by two groups of English majors in order to identify and correct syntactic errors in a series of six academic paragraphs during two semesters in the second-year course LM-1235 English Composition I at the University of Costa Rica. In addition, it presents a sample lesson with the integration of different language skills so that learners will benefit from cooperative learning, authentic input, and a sequence of interactive tasks to improve their outcome, being this the case of an academic paragraph and its outline. Finally, the writer analyzes the resul ts of a survey questionnaire that assesses the learners’ perception towards the challenges of writing