De escribir y describir

Abstract

The goal of our study is to show our University students' level of writing in a Second Language at the initial stage of their University period, particularly regarding French descriptive texts. Our working corpus is formed by a questionnaire plus twenty texts. We can state that our students neither command text competence, nor they describe what they see and feel, but they rather reproduce familiar patterns for exercises. Their texts lack organisation, they show few connectors, little vocabulary and are poorly actualised. Our proposal it to modify writing situations in the classroom, to follow a pattern for marking the exercises (for both students and teachers), and finally, to devote more time to writing exercises.