Explicit Vs.Implicit Instruction:An Empirical Study On English Grammar Teaching In High School

In the past several decades,the study of the implicit and explicit grammar teaching took an important role in second language acquisition.Until now,the implicit and explicit grammar teaching is a controversial issue in second language acquisition.Explicit and implicit instruction that are based on the opposite theory of Krashen(1981,1982,1985,1992)and Schmidt(1992)separately are two representative approaches to teach grammar.Many researchers studied the role of explicit and implicit instruction played in second language acquisition in ESL contexts while little research made in EFL contexts.Therefore,this study,which carried both theoretical and practical significances,was an empirical study that tried to explore the effects of explicit and implicit grammar instruction under the context of China.The subjects involved were 56 students who aged 16-17 years in grade two from Wuhan Foreign Language School.They were divided into two groups:the implicit group and the explicit group.The implicit group involved 36 students and the explicit group involved 20 students.Before the experiment,the author gave the pre-test to students.The data was analyzed by the independent sample T-test.The results showed that the English proficiency of this two groups were similar.So,we could choose these two classes as subjects of this experiment.This experiment,lasting 13 weeks,would be conducted by teaching relative clauses with explicit and implicit instruction.Then,learning effects were measured by paper-tests that involved multiple-choice,fill-in-blank,completing sentences and making a composition and a questionnaire.After two months,students would do the delayed-test.All data would be analyzed by SPSS 20.0.Those data would answer the following questions:(1)With regard to explicit and implicit instruction,which one is better in facilitating the students'academic performance on the target learning grammar?(2)What is students' attitude toward explicit/implicit instruction?(3)Which instruction has a long-term effect on the target learning grammar?The results indicated the following findings.(1)The implicit and explicit instruction had similar effect on facilitating students' academic performance on the target learning grammar;(2)Students were more willing to accept the explicit approach because the explicit instruction was more efficient;When teacher didn't provide grammar rules,students from the implicit group were more confident in learning grammar;Students could accept the implicit instruction occasionally;(3)The effects of implicit and explicit instruction could retain for a long time.