This article presents some results of a quasi-experimental study on the production of written texts in French and English as foreign languages as well as German as language of schooling by German-speaking seventh graders in Switzerland. Two groups of learners are compared, differing in terms of the order of foreign language acquisition – French as a first or second foreign language – and the duration of learning of English, as a result of a curriculum reform. The learners with an early beginning of English write longer texts, subordinate more and use more and more diverse connectives on average, but their French and German texts do not differ with regard to the variables examined in comparison to the late beginners of English. Significant interlingual correlations indicate the transversality of the skills identified in both groups. Possible didactic consequences of the results are discussed.