An Analysis of EFL Learners' English Sentence Parsing Process after SPCG Practice

The purposes of this study are to understand the properties of EFL learners' sentence parsing process, to explore a way to train sentence parsing with an activity i.e., a card game, and to analyze students' improvement after the sentence parsing card game. T-tests and the one way ANOVA were used to test if there were significant differences in sentence parsing of two groups of students before and after 20 times of card game (once a week). The results are as follows: (A) the group who had card game became spastically more inclined than other groups to conduct complex parsing strategies in their writing (i.e., use more clauses that include various verbs); (b) effects are moderately significant for the writing test after sentence parsing practice, compared with other groups who neither had card game nor sentence parsing instruction. The result hints that the EFL students could be more vigilant in improving sentence parsing of complex clauses if they have training for sentence parsing process. This has important pedagogical implications that learners may improve more by focusing on sentence parsing practices rather than learning expository aspects of target grammar.