Error Analysis as a Strategy to Improve Writing Production in French as Foreign Language

Abstract

This article presents the results of an Action-Research that we implemented within a group of students learning French in a Colombian university. Their motivations for learning French were the access to francophone cultures and the academic opportunities they could achieve through learning this language. Hence, as writing is an indispensable language skill for having access to social and academic interchanges in the literate societies, we decided to implement a teaching intervention to improve the writing skills of this group of students. Our action was focused on the improvement of the writing micro skillsby proposing our learners to write four activities based on the adapted book The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and evaluating them through a rubric whose items were those micro-skills. Using this information and following the error analysis method, some lessons were planned for helping students overcome the aspects that made their written communication unclear. In the end, we found that the sequence comprising writing the activities, evaluating and intervening them did not contribute to diminishing the number of errors in their writing compositions, but it enhanced their writing competence by developing students’ awareness of the different elements writing is composed of.