This study investigated the extent to which explicit and implicit instruction improve L1-Arabic speakers’ articulation of English words whose cognates were acquired earlier in their L2 French. Sixty-eight secondary school students, explicit (n=35) and implicit (n=33), participated in a programme incorporating focus-on-pronunciation activities, comprising three 45-minute sessions. Their learning motivation was first rated using an adapted version of Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB). Their pronunciation improvement was assessed through an oral-reading task. Ten new words were included in the post-test to see if they would generalize the instructed knowledge analogically. Results indicated that both explicit and implicit instruction had a positive impact on the students’ pronunciation advancement. However, the explicit group outperformed the implicit group with both the targeted and untaught words. There was insignificant interaction effect between instructional method and students’ motivation level, with higher motivation uniformly enhancing the effect of instruction. Nevertheless, motivation played a more crucial role in the learnt knowledge transferability when instruction was of implicit.

This study investigates the use of the English definite article by Korean middle school students and examines the effects of explicit instruction on the article. Two hundred and seventy-two Korean middle school students were instructed on the core meaning of the definite article, identifiability, through a processing instruction method and were tested on their uses of the target form before and after instruction. The pretest results show that the various non-generic uses of the English definite article pose different levels of difficulty for Korean middle school learners of English. The comparison between the pretest and posttest results confirm the positive effect of teaching the core meaning of the definite article. All in all, the study shows that the non-generic use of the English definite article is teachable through the introduction of its core meaning in the EFL classroom. It provides substantial empirical evidence for the facilitative role of focus on form instruction in the acquisition of definite article in an EFL context.

This study investigates differential effects of form-focused instruction (FFI) on the development of explicit knowledge versus implicit knowledge of a second language (L2) when the FFI is offered within the context of meaning-focused instruction (MFI). Forty-two adult learners of English participated in the study and were randomly assigned to a group who received FFI before MFI (FM), a group who received FFI after MFI (MF), a group who received MFI only (M), or a control group. Learning was measured by an untimed grammaticality judgment task (UGJT), a primary measure for explicit knowledge, and an elicited oral imitation task (EOIT), a primary measure for implicit knowledge. The results illustrate that, despite both FM and MF groups’ improved performance on the UGJT, only the FM group showed a positive developmental trend on the EOIT. No clear learning effect was observed among the M group learners or the controls. Therefore, the findings suggest that FFI prior to MFI supports the development of implicit knowledge more efficiently than FFI delayed until after MFI has begun.

This study investigates differential effects of form-focused instruction (FFI) to a simple versus complex L2 targets when the FFI is offered within a context of primarily meaning-focused instruction (MFI). Forty-seven Korean-speaking adult learners of English participated in the study and were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental groups or one control group. The experimental participants were instructed in one simple and one complex targets through MFI plus FFI or MFI only. No instruction was provided for the controls. Learning was measured by a grammaticality judgment task, and knowledge types were examined by subjective measures of awareness. The results indicate that the combination of FFI and MFI results in more robust learning effects than the exclusive use of MFI particularly for both simple and complex targets. As for the types of knowledge, the analyses found that FFI positively influences development of implicit and explicit knowledge.

This study examined whether explicit or implicit teaching is more efficient in improving Korean middle school students’ English verb−noun collocation knowledge. Forty Korean EFL middle school students participated in the study and they were assigned to either the explicit instruction or implicit instruction group. The participants’ English verb−noun collocation knowledge was measured through pre-, immediate post-, and delayed post-tests over the 5- week experimental period, and a survey of participants’ opinions on the instruction they received was carried out. The results showed that the students who received the explicit collocation instruction displayed better learning outcomes, suggesting the immediate influence of the explicit instruction, and more importantly the sustained initial advantage. That is, the explicit group students did retain the target items significantly better than the implicit group students. The responses from the two groups also indicated the positive effects of the explicit collocation instruction. The explicit group students were mostly satisfied with the instruction and showed increased confidence in acquiring English collocations while the implicit students did not. This study provides L2 teachers with valuable information on how to teach L2 collocation more effectively.

Many educators question the value of explicit grammar instruction in foreign language education and look for alternative ways to enhance the communicative ability. Focusing on Korean leaners’ acquisition of English relative clauses, we examine whether grammar knowledge can result from experiencing English texts without explicit knowledge being provided at the outset of the learning. Our study shows that many grammatical features of English relative clauses can be acquired incidentally without explicit grammar instruction. Further, we found that the knowledge acquired through the implicit incidental learning can be better retained than that through the explicit learning.