Effects Of Explicitness Of The Target Form Exposure On Grammar Learning In EFL Classroom

The role of grammar in L2 learning is no longer doubted,but the approach to grammar learning is controversial and has attracted much research interest for the past decades. The key issue seems to be how to balance between explicit learning and implicit learning. Based on the existing theories or models of focus-on-form, including those of input enhancement, input processing and consciousness-raising, this study intends, from the angle of input, to examine to what extent the degree of explicitness of the target form exposure affects its initial learning and retention.In this instructional experiment, the independent variables are four types of grammar presentation to the learners,namely,textual enhancement (TE),structured input activities(SIA), grammar consciousness-raising tasks (GCR), plus the conventional instruction(CI). The dependent variables are recognition and production of the target form, and comprehension of the target-form-contained text, which are assessed respectively by grammaticality judgment,Chinese-English translation and reading comprehension test.The subjects were from four parallel classes of a junior school in Taixing, forming three experimental groups and a control group, named as TE group, SIA group, GCR group and CI group with the degree of explicitness of the target form in the treatment increasing successively. The pretest was used to screen out those students who had the knowledge of passive voice. After the treatment, posttests and 2-week delayed tests were made to each of the four groups. The data was analyzed by using SPSS. The research drew the following conclusions:For initial learning, 1) Conventional instruction still, which is most explicit, has advantage over the other groups in production of the target form, but the advantage in recognition and comprehension is not obvious. 2) Among the other three unconventional instructions, GCR tasks, the most explicit way, have better effect than the less explicit ways ie. TE and SIA, especially on recognition of the target form. And on the production and comprehension of the target form GCR tasks also performed better than the other two.In terms of retention of the target form, 1) The advantage of conventional instruction,which is entirely explicit, declined sharply. The difference between the post and delayed tests was the largest among the four groups, although the absolute scoring on production still ranked as top. 2) Among the other three groups, GCR group, which was the most explicit, performed the best, and the difference between the post and delayed tests was the smallest; then followed the SIA group, which was less explicit in treatment; and the TE group, the least explicit, performed relatively poor on the whole.The study bears implications for future English grammar teaching, especially in terms of grammar presentation, though limitations of this study do exist.