The Role of Implicit Instruction

The Role of Implicit Instruction

While the end goal of implicit and explicit instruction is to develop knowledge that would lead to effective communication, there exists a difference between them. Implicit instruction has been provided is superior in enhancing learning to explicit instruction in most scenarios. This could be because, in implicit learning, students are allowed to create their unique rules to govern language acquisition. Explicit instruction focus on planned and documented language acquisition, whereas implicit instruction assumes that learners acquire language through incidental participation in classroom activities. Deductive explicit learning involves providing students with a general rule and applying it to particular language examples and practices. Conversely, in inductive implicit instruction, learners detect patterns of application and develop rules for themselves, which they apply in language learning. Even though there exist differences between the two theories of learning. In determining the relation between explicit and implicit instruction, there exist the weak and strong interface positions, where the weak interface indicates a slight relationship between the two sets of instruction, whereas a strong interface position indicates a considerable relation stating that continuous use of explicit learning leads to implicit learning.

 Some of the implicit and explicit instructional methods discussed in the chapter include focus-on-form instruction, Presentation, Production and Practice (PPP), concept-based learning, production-based instruction, and comprehension-based instruction, among others. One of the methods that seem interesting is the focus-on-form instruction, which is best applicable to instructional activities than specific types of language instruction; the rationale of the focus-on-form instruction is that language acquisition happens when learners’ attention focuses on language elements needed for communication which leads to meaning-focused interaction where there is a brief consideration of linguistic forms. All these methods are effective in second language acquisition, as they provide learners with the opportunity to apply language learning activities into context.