Integration Of Explicit And Implicit Grammar Instruction Of Subjunctive Mood At High School

For many years, it has been a controversial issue that whether a foreign language should be learned consciously or acquired unconsciously. This bifurcation has led to two different ways of grammar instruction, which are the explicit instruction and the implicit instruction. As we know, grammar plays a vital role in the study of English. The most common adopted instruction in a grammar class is either the direct explanation method or the indirect communicative way. But neither of them can reach a balanced input.Up till now, many scholars at home and abroad have compared the differences between the explicit instruction as well as the implicit instruction. As their results show, the explicit instruction has got a more profound effect, particularly in written grammar. Besides, as we know, the subjunctive mood is a key point of English grammar. It also has been the barrier for English learners. Based on these facts, we have thought of making an integration between the explicit instruction and the implicit instruction in the teaching of subjunctive mood.In this experiment, the subjunctive mood was instructed in two different ways, which contains the integrated explicit and implicit grammar instruction and the traditional explicit instruction. The subjects, involved in this empirical study, were 50 high school students who were in their first year studying. Half of them composed the Experimental Group(EG) and the rest ones compounded the Contrast Group(CG). They had the same teacher and had the same 5-week time duration. To be more specific, the participants in EG were firstly were firstly involved in comprehensible input like songs, pictures and stories. During this period, they were encouraged to summarize the rules of the subjunctive mood. Then, teacher’s proper explanation was delivered to them. Finally, they were asked to output what have been learned in the forms of translation, dialogue and sentence making. In contrast, the participants in CG kept the same way like traditional class does. Grammar rules are given directly by the teacher.Two results have been obtained from the data analysis:(1) The integrated instruction can motivate students in learning subjunctive mood so as to improve its final acquisition.(2) The integrated instruction is more effective than the mere explicit instruction on improving students level of subjunctive mood.