Explicit and Implicit Grammar Teaching Strategies - Essay Example

The result of this experiment revealed that although the students exposed to the implicit condition heard ten times more examples of the target structure as compared to those under the explicit condition, an evaluation of the mean scores of both the groups of students varied significantly whereby the students under the implicit condition clearly outperformed those grouped under the explicit condition.  On the basis of this experiment, the author concluded that implicit grammar strategies requiring students to listen to implicit grammar structures replicated in a natural context, do not encourage learning of the targeted structure.

Another similar experiment, with considerable changes in teaching and testing procedures, was conducted in order to provide further empirical data regarding the teaching of the two grammar strategies. The experiment comprised a group of 37 students from two advanced French conversation classes at Emory University. The experiment was divided into two parts: relative pronouns and subjunctive. In part one, one of the groups was exposed to the explicit teaching strategy while the other group was exposed to the implicit teaching strategy. Both groups, under both conditions, stayed in the listening mode and there was no verbal or written practice of the structures. During the second part of the experiment, the group which had been exposed to the explicit teaching condition for the relative pronouns was exposed to an implicit teaching condition for the subjunctive. The experiment incorporated two main changes in the study: one in the teaching procedure and in the other in the testing procedure. Irrespective of this fact, the outcome of this study substantiates almost precise results as observed in Scott's first study with the result that the students under the explicit teaching condition considerably displayed enhanced performance for both grammatical structures as compared to the students under the implicit teaching condition.

Conclusion:

This article provides a comprehensive understanding of the two distinct teaching strategies with substantial evidence that students have great complexity in classifying the linguistic elements which they hear into a proper grammatical structure although they tend to evidently benefit from the prearranged, unambiguous arrangement of grammar. The paper provides adequate evidence for the teachers to base their teaching strategies on facilitating students to learn FL faster and in an efficient manner. Furthermore, this study also helps in concluding that the students are more likely to benefit from the implementation of explicit grammar strategies in a classroom setting and will be able to perform relatively better, as compared to the implicit grammar strategies.