A growing number of studies have addressed the issue concerning the use of ‘because-clauses’ as sentence fragments by Japanese learners of English. The purpose of the present study is to investigate and analyze the misuse of ‘because-clauses’ by Japanese English learners and to explore pedagogical implications. Sixty-one Japanese senior high school students participated in the study. The research examined L2 learners’ production and comprehension of because-clauses and interview responses. The results revealed that more than half of the L2 learners employ ‘because-clauses’ as sentence fragments in their writing and that over 90% of them accept the usage as correct in their grammatical judgment test. The results from interviews with the L2 learners also indicated that there is a possibility that their first language has an influence on the misuse of ‘because-clauses’. The study concludes with pedagogical implications and recommendations for future research.
