The L2 Learners' Explicit And Implicit Knowledge And Its Relation With L2 Learning/Teaching Strategies

Implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge are an interdisciplinary research focus for applied linguistics and psycholinguistics abroad in second language acquisition (SLA). Different opinions are proposed to illustrate the relationship between implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge. There are three main positions: non-interface position, strong-interface position, and weak-interface position.This thesis tends to focus on the composition state of explicit and implicit knowledge of Chinese learners of English and the relation between learning and teaching strategies and the knowledge state of learners.The hypothesis is that Chinese L2 learners have not internalized the L2 knowledge effectively. The main research questions are as follows: 1) Among the three parts of L2 knowledge, namely, vocabulary, phrases and expressions and grammar, which part has L2 learners mastered the best in terms of explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge? 2) In each part of L2 knowledge, to what degree have the L2 learners internalized the L2 knowledge? 3) According to the characteristics of each part of L2 knowledge and the present learning and teaching strategies used by learners and teachers, which learning and teaching strategies are helpful for learners to internalize the L2 knowledge?This thesis adopts error correction test as the main testing form to explore the composition state of explicit and implicit knowledge of learners. And a questionnaire is designed to explore the relation between learning/teaching strategies and knowledge state.In conclusion, the Chinese learners of English fail to internalize L2 knowledge effectively. Analyzed from the results of test and questionnaire, it is indicated that the internalizing of L2 knowledge is far from perfect. And the learning strategies the learners usually use are not very helpful in internalizing of knowledge. And the result gives support to weak-interface position to some extent. At the end of the thesis, suggestions are proposed as well to improve the internalizing of knowledge.