A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Award of the Degree "Licence en langue et littérature Anglaises".

Résumé,

The present study aims to respond to the following questions : Are the English majors at the University of Burundi aware of the parts of an email ? Which part(s) of an email is (are) more problematic to English majors ? Is there any improvement with time a students communicate through email ? To end, an analysis of forty email written by four students from University of Burundi in English language and Literature Department has been done.
Each student wrote five first emails and five last emails.
The analysis was conducted on 5 first emails to respond to the first two questions. The result has shown that basing on the findings from table I with the ones in table 2, it is clear that the English majors at the University of Burundi are aware of the parts of emails. At the question of knowing which parts are more problematic, the study shows that greeting/salutation and signature are more problematic at the percentage of 60 % and 40 % respectively. With the third research question about whether there is any improvement with time as students communicate through email.
A comparison between the five first emails and five last emails has been done.
The result has shown that a big difference is evident among them. At the part of greeting/salutation there is an important from 20 % to 65% in the last five emails, at the stage of the body, the study shows that there is an amelioration which raised from 75 % in the first five emails to 80 % in the last five emails, closing from 60 % to 70 %, signature from 45 % to 55% in last five emails.
All these show that English major students at University of Burundi improve the writings of emails time after time as they communicate. It is good for students to multiply the practice of writing emails and lectures to give a lot of exercises related to how to write emails.