A Comparative Study Of The Effects Of Implicit And Explicit Learning On Lexical Learning For English Majors

In the field of second language acquisition,there are two types of learning modes:implicit learning and explicit learning.In recent years,a large number of domestic and international studies have confirmed that implicit learning and explicit learning influence learners’ English lexical learning.However,few researchers have undertaken a comparative study of the two lexical learning.Although there are relevant studies,some flaws have been identified,such as broad research questions,simple subject selection,and limited experimental materials.As a result,the paper intends to compare the effects of implicit learning and explicit learning on lexical learning,with a view to investigating the effects of various learning methods on the spelling,understanding,and use of vocabulary.This study takes the Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis and Input Hypothesis as the theoretical foundation and draws on the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to research.This experiment selected 90 junior students majoring in English from a university in Chongqing as the subjects.After proving that there was no significant difference in their English proficiency and vocabulary level,they were divided into one pilot group and two main experimental groups.In the nine-day main study,the two experimental groups read five economic news articles and learned the target words in the way of implicit and explicit learning respectively.After learning the target words,two groups completed a target vocabulary test,which included Cued Response Production Test,Multiple Choice Recognition Test,and Translation.At the end of the experiment,all subjects filled out a questionnaire about implicit and explicit learning and an in-depth interview with 10 subjects was conducted to probe into the differential impact of various learning modes on learners’ lexical learning.This study mainly focuses on the following three questions:(1)Which type of learning is more effective for English lexical learning,implicit learning or explicit learning?(2)What effects do implicit and explicit learning have on the spelling,understanding,and use of English lexicons respectively?(3)What factors contribute to the differential effects of implicit and explicit learning on the spelling,understanding,and use of English lexicons from learners’ perspectives? The findings are summarized as follows:(1)Implicit learning and explicit learning have different effects on English majors’ lexical learning,and explicit learning is more effective.(2)The subjects adopting the explicit learning spell and use the target words more accurately,while there was no difference between subjects who adopted the explicit learning and those who adopted the implicit learning in terms of the understanding of target words.(3)Learners’ awareness,contexts,word frequency,and other factors have differential effects on English lexical learning.Based on the above findings,this study makes an empirical contribution to the debate on whether implicit learning or explicit learning is more effective in foreign language vocabulary teaching and also provides certain insights into lexical teaching.In the process of vocabulary learning,the role of teachers’ teaching and other explicit learning activities should be valued,in order to achieve better learning outcomes for learners.In addition,to some extent,this study has theoretical values in questioning Krashen’s hypothesis that language can be acquired with sufficient comprehensible input.