Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine the development of syntactic structures in Japanese EFL learners’ writing. Some studies have shown the L2 syntactic complexity produced by learners is correlated with the learners’ L2 proficiency. Recently, Hwang, et al. (2020) suggested that teaching complex syntactic rules in writing can affect the scores of an L2 listening and reading comprehension test with Korean EFL learners. In the present study, 16 Japanese EFL learners (KOSEN students) participated. Five writing tasks and two proficiency tests, TOEIC-LR and TOEFL IBT were conducted. The results showed that the use of clauses containing subordinate clauses and indirect questions in writing might affect the results of the proficiency tests. Some issues that require further study remain.
https://ror.org/034jd0m14 
