A Comparative Study On Characteristics Of Second Language Implicit Knowledge And Explicit Knowledge Between Excellent Students And Ordinary Students In Grade8

Although claims about explicit and implicit language knowledge are central to many debates in SLA, little research has been dedicated to measuring the two types among Chinese second-language (L2) learners (of English). The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of second language implicit and explicit knowledge among Chinese junior students.22excellent students and21ordinary students were selected. A battery of tests designed by Rod Ellis (2005) was used to provide relatively independent measures of two types of knowledge. The research involved in four tests. These tests were (a) an oral imitation test involving grammatical and ungrammatical sentences,(b) a timed grammaticality judgment test (GJT),(c) a untimed GJT with the same content, and (d) a metalinguistic knowledge test. Tests (a) and (b) were designed as measures of implicit knowledge, and test (c) and (d) were designed as measures of explicit knowledge.Results indicated that (a) the difference in second-language implicit knowledge between excellent students and ordinary students was not statistically significant.(b) Students scored higher on the untimed GJT than on the oral imitation test and timed GJT. However, there was no significant difference between the oral imitation test and timed GJT.(c) Students scored higher on the oral imitation than on timed GJT if the sentence was grammatical and syntactic in type and the structure belongs to comparatives. However, students scored higher on timed GJT than on oral imitation if the sentence was ungrammatical and syntactic in type and the structure belongs to comparatives.The results suggested that there were two different types of knowledge. Learners performed better on the unpressured tests than the pressured tests because they would be able to supplement their implicit knowledge with their explicit knowledge. It’s difficult for learners to implicitly acqui(?) knowledge of the complex ungrammatical sentence structure (comparatives). Lear(?) could perform better implicitly while focusing on neanings than on forms.