Ethos is the part of a person’s identity he or she needs to be able to speak andwrite with credibility in different communicative situations. Ethos emergesthrough language, body, thought and action. In each context, we establish ourethos, at the same time as ethos paradoxically is a consequence of context.Ethos is closely related to the language and the expressions we use, and canuse, in various types of communication situations. The adolescents in this articlereport that they experience an imbalance between the teaching of writingand oral communication, although the rhetorical process is the same for writtenand oral compositions. However, the longitudinal analysis of the teachingprocess shows that the imbalance students experience is explained by the factthat the rhetorical process (intellectio, inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoriaand actio / pronuntiatio) is treated differently in written and oral composition.Students are offered few opportunities to work on their preparations oralpresentation since the emphasis is rather on the practical performance - actio /pronuntiatio. This gives students more opportunities to establish ethos in frontof each other than to build ethos together with others.