Resumen

FLOREZ-ROMERO, Rita; ARIAS-VELANDIA, Nicolás  y  MORENO-ANGARITA, Marisol. Changes in the reading and writing skills of new university students attending the "oral and written communication" course. rev.fac.med. [online]. 2011, vol.59, n.4, pp.319-330. ISSN 0120-0011.

Background. Colombian Ministry of Education competency standards and several pieces of research regarding writing have shown that students' reading and writing skills, when they begin their university courses, should allow them to produce complete argumentative texts, understand complex academic texts and detect correct responses and flaws in the arguments being presented in the texts which they must read. Other studies have shown that this does not always happen and thus efforts must be made to strengthen these students' learning of the mother tongue and their understanding of oral and written academic language. Objective. Evaluating the change in new students from different Universidad Nacional de Colombia sites taking the "oral and written communication" course regarding inferential understanding of reading, recognising arguments, writing reviews and writing argumentative texts. Materials and Methods. 78 first-semester students participated by means of a questionnaire taken before and after taking the "oral and written communication" course and independent rating of a final text. Results. Students' performance improved throughout the course in all areas, especially in two of the university's four sites offering the course. Discussion. The results were discussed regarding the different processes involved in the learning of the students from the participating sites.

Palabras clave : writing; wedge argument; book reviews; learning; students; undergraduate education; MeSH.

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