An analysis of the order of difficulty in learning selected English grammatical structures by Chinese students

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the difficulty order of selected English grammatical structures for Chinese EFL students learning English in China was similar to that for ESL students learning English in a target language environment. The study was also to explore, for these Chinese EFL learners, whether the differences in their proficiency levels and types of tests had an effect on the order of difficulty and the accuracy of responses to the subtests. Finally, this study would examine whether this order of difficulty was similar to the order of the same grammatical structures presented in the subjects' textbook.;Eighty secondary school students participated in the study. These subjects, aged 13-17, were of two proficiency levels (8th grade and 11th grade) from two high schools in Tianjin, China. The Second Language Oral Test of English was administered both as an oral and written test. Spearman Rank Order Correlation and t-Test values were computed for data analysis.;The findings included: (1) There seems to be a natural order of difficulty in learning selected English grammatical structures for Chinese EFL students in this study. (2) The order of difficulty produced by Chinese EFL students is independent of the order being taught. (3) This order of difficulty for Chinese EFL students is similar to those found for ESL students in previous studies. However, there are many differences. (4) The significantly increased accuracy of responses in the written test indicates that, in the learning process, EFL students in this study seem to rely more on their conscious knowledge of the target language than ESL students.;The study suggests that, for Chinese EFL students, there seems to be a natural order of difficulty in learning certain English grammatical structures. Acquisition seems to be the major strategy of these subjects in learning a foreign language, though they showed more evidence of conscious learning when conditions permitted.