The purpose of this study is to investigate Korean college students’ syntactic development, especially the order of acquisition in terms of the types of the sentences and clauses written in English essays. Eighty-six Korean female college students in Seoul participated in this study. For research method, the students wrote English essays with the given topic through the test web site. The essays were scored on a scale of one to six., and then were divided into three proficiency groups. After that, the students’ essays were analyzed and counted by types of sentences/clauses and frequency: simple/compound/complex sentences and nominal/adverbial/adjective clauses. The findings revealed significant differences in the frequency of different types of clauses by students’ English levels. The results showed that the amount of sentences/clauses based on the level of English proficiency was quite different. In particular, significant differences were found in the use of the complex sentences and subordinate clauses by levels. In addition, the use of adjective (relative) clauses was prominent only in the advanced level. Teaching implications were discussed and future research suggestions were made at the end of the paper.

• 황은경(명지대학교) | Hwang, Eunkyung
• 전세재(숙명여자대학교) | Chun, Sehjae 교신저자