This power point presentation reports a research made by Marco Tulio Artunduaga Cuellar a part of a Master Degree program in English Didactics which general objective is "to enhance linguistic competence by addressing grammar in the context of writing". For this twenty two students of the third semester of an English Licenciatura program of Amazonia University were

1. UNIVERSIDAD DE CALDAS UNIVERSIDAD SURCOLOMBIANA MASTERS DEGREE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH DIDACTICS NEIVA 2009

5. DEFICIENCIES EVIDENCED 01/26/10 Template copyright 2005 www.brainybetty.com CATEGORIES SUBCATEGORIES FREQUENCY TEACHING STRATEGIES Grammatical analysis 15 Communicative Activities 7 Error correction 27 SKILLS Writing 11 LINGUISTIC COMPETENCES Grammatical competence 198 TOTAL FREQUENCY 258

13. 01/26/10 Template copyright 2005 www.brainybetty.com PLANNING DRAFTING EDITING FINAL VERSION? FINAL VERSION

15. FINDINGS 01/26/10 Template copyright 2005 www.brainybetty.com Before After In the first composition and first drafts of texts students made many mistakes regarding: Vocabulary: learners tended to employ a lot of made-up vocabulary especially in the form of words similar to one in Spanish as in “students are inconform” (unhappy); “he met danger as pirates and tempest” (storms). Other lexical difficulties included: The use of verbs instead of nouns as in he listened a shoot. (shot). The use of some verbs instead of others as in they have scare. ( are scared). The use of a noun instead of other as in I give you my friends. (friendship). The use of words with similar meaning but different usage as in they were scared than the two ships crash. (that) After the implementation of the project significant improvement was seen in the following aspects: Students gain awareness in the appropriate use of vocabulary according to the context , for this the use of the dictionary was a skill students developed. As a result of this no more “invented” words are found.

16. 01/26/10 Template copyright 2005 www.brainybetty.com Before After Punctuation and capitalization: the majority of the learners did not employ any punctuation in their papers and occasionally only periods were used at the end of a long sentence . Only a few learners employed commas and none of them used the appropriate punctuation to indicate quotations, exclamations or questions. Similarly, no capitalization rules were applied for proper nouns or after a period or question mark or at the beginning of a sentence . Word Order: Problems in the organization of subjects and verbs as in “the boat where was travelling Robinson”. As well as errors in the order of adjectives and nouns as in “other problem is the register very expensive” Sentences are shorter as a result of employing more punctuation such as commas and question marks . A better command of capitalization was noticed in proper nouns and initial letters in a sentence as well as in words after a period or question mark . Learners pay more attention to syntax in sentences and reduced errors in subject - verb and noun – adjective organization. Many students show an enhancement in the appropriate selection and use of words such as prepositions, pronouns and articles , even though there are still some omissions in the use of prepositions such as “about, for, and of” and conjunctions such as “as”.

17. 01/26/10 Template copyright 2005 www.brainybetty.com Before After Omissions and unnecessary words: Learners had the tendency to avoid using pronouns, articles, prepositions as in “Is important to recognize the problems”, “we find solutions for the benefit of English students”. The opposite case was also evident and there were many times when words and phrases especially pronouns, articles and prepositions were unnecessarily used as in “it is that’s why we as English students are affected”, “this accident it is now a myth”, Verb Forms: Students did not consider employing the appropriate verb forms and auxiliaries according to tense and number as in “the English program have much difficulty”, “one morning Robinson was waited Friday who went out to hunt for lunch.” And “Robinson don’t pay attention to the parents,” Students showed a better comprehension and use of verb forms depending on the person and number and also the use of auxiliaries . However this improvement did not correspond with a better employ of verb tenses. In general terms learners take more time planning and revising their written productions and are more careful editors not only of their own papers but also of their classmates’ . As a consequence of this longer time invested in the composition process, the students’ dedication help them achieve a more fruitful performance in text length and quality and also in the aesthetic factor which is noticed in handwriting, organization and general presentation of papers. Students also benefit from the process by recognizing and producing different texts considering the qualities of narrative and descriptive genres