Investigating Difficulty Order of Certain English Grammar Features in an Iranian EFL Setting

The English grammar is usually taught to undergraduate EFL learners in Iran during the first academic year. It may be supposed that they have acquired a good mastery of the English grammar as they are on the verge of graduation. At the same time, it may be assumed that some English grammar features are more difficult/less difficult than others for the EFL learners to master. This study, therefore, attempts to find out which English grammar features are more difficult/less difficult than others for Iranian undergraduate EFL learners. 125 Iranian undergraduate senior EFL learners took part in this study and responded to the English grammar test. Moreover, some experienced English instructors were asked to rate the difficulty of the given English grammar features. The data were collected and analyzed which revealed that some English grammar features were more difficult and some were less difficult than others for the EFL learners. The obtained difficulty order determined by the EFL learners and the one obtained according to the instructors’ perceptions were compared. Some similarities/overlaps and differences were found to exist in the rank orders of the features for the two groups. The findings of the study may be beneficial to syllabus designers, material developers, instructors and EFL learners.

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