Abstract
<jats:p>The article presents the results based on a pilot study over the components of communicative competences, particularly linguistic and discourse competences in Bulgarian among children attending Bulgarian schools abroad. The study is based on questionnaires developed by the authors’ team. It is aimed at identifying problem areas in terms of written speech (writing in Bulgarian) and the scope of vocabulary in different lexical-semantic fields (domains, according to Grosjean, 2013). The occurrences of mixing of two or more lexical systems (in Bulgarian and the language of the country of residence, as well as in other languages that the students speak to a certain extent) are discussed. The third focus is given for the specific skills of the bilingual children for creating connected speech in a given situation with visual support. The results of the pilot study demonstrate the implementation of different stages of mastering writing as a technical skill and as a speech activity. The analysis and the results can help build an appropriate methodology for teaching in Bulgarian schools abroad. It can be concluded that among students from Bulgarian schools abroad, we observe that the transition from oral to written speech is a complex and prolonged process, and for some students, it is a transition to an entirely new language system (Bulgarian is learned as a foreign language). KEYWORDS: Bulgarian language as L2 and foreign language, writing, Bulgarian schools abroad, communicative competence</jats:p>