This paper discusses the need to apply a pedagogical model to the analysis of errors in the target language so as to make accessible to teachers a technique which they themselves can use in their own classrooms to extract objective information about their students’ errors. Such a model was applied to the written responses of 386 high school students in Jamaica to assess the levels of their difficulty with syntax as indicated by the proportions of error types derived from the tasks performed, and to determine the possible sources of the errors.

This study was designed to investigate how an intervention of purposefully designed activities would affect the writing performance of a group of ten female grade eleven students at a non-traditional high school in Jamaica. The study examined the difficulties that the students encountered when writing and explored the factors that contributed to the students' writing difficulties. Data were collected from interviews, participant observations, students' journals and students' written work. 

In the West Indies today, under the aegis of the Caribbean Examination Council and the various National Curriculum Development Committees, teachers are working to draw up curricula, syllabuses and examinations for several subjects, among them Spanish. Assuming that these syllabuses and examinations must be tailored to accommodate the teaching of Spanish in the various countries of the region, the question arises: what kind of Spanish should we teach? Up to the present no concerted policy has emerged.