An Empirical Study On The Relationship Between Explicit/tacit Knowledge Of High School Students At Different Levels

Whether there is an interface between explicit / implicit knowledge has been deeply concerned by SLA researchers.Although it is still a controversial topic in this field,researchers all agree that implicit knowledge plays a crucial role in the language system.The ultimate goal of SLA is to establish an implicit knowledge system that exists outside the learners' consciousness.However,explicit knowledge also plays a significant role during the process of SLA.Therefore,it has deeply practical significance to explore whether there is an interface between explicit / implicit knowledge.Researchers in this field have already proved the testability of explicit / implicit knowledge using theoretical and empirical researches,and also proved the validity of the measurement methods.Based on the research findings of the previous researches,this paper aims to find out the relationship between explicit / implicit knowledge by investigating two proficiency-groups of senior three students' explicit / implicit knowledge of 17 English grammatical structures,through a timed grammaticality judgment test and a metalinguistic knowledge test.Specifically,this research is trying to answer the following three questions: 1)What is the situation of explicit / implicit knowledge in different levels of high school students? 2)Is there an interface between explicit / implicit knowledge in different levels of high school students? If yes,what is the conversion degree of explicit knowledge? 3)How difficult will it be of the 17 grammatical structures' explicit knowledge converting into implicit knowledge in different levels of high school students?The findings of the study are as follows: 1)The situation of explicit / implicit knowledge of high-level students was generally satisfactory,the situation of explicit knowledge was better than implicit knowledge,and the situation of low-level students is not ideal;2)There is a high degree of correspondence between explicit / implicit knowledge(all above 85%)both with the statistics of each subject and each grammatical structure in different levels of students.Indicating that in the non-target language environment,implicit knowledge was derived from explicit knowledge.There is a strong-interface between these two kinds of knowledge,and verifies the strong interface hypothesis;3)Although both levels have a high degree of correspondence between these two kinds of knowledge,there is a great difference between the situation of explicit / implicit knowledge of the 17 grammatical structures.The most difficult of which were the ones of irregularity or the ones which are of regularity but complicated in nature.Therefore,it has a lot remains to be done in order for EFL to establish a dynamic and balanced grammar teaching model.Thus,a practical further question to be tackled is how to create an atmosphere that is most beneficial for learners to implicitly acquire a L2.