An Empirical Study On The Effectiveness Of The Integration Of Implicit And Explicit Instruction In College English Grammar Teaching

Since the American psychologist Arthur.S.Reber (1967) proposed "implicit learning" in Implicit Learning of Artificial Grammar for the first time, the implicit learning theory has been developed and improved by an increasing number of experts and researchers in the pedagogic field. It is further applied to concrete teaching practice in order to find a breakthrough in educational reform. After it was introduced to China, it is finally put into practice by going through several phases, including theoretical research. On one hand, how to make it really work in the English teaching with Chinese characteristics is still worth studying. On the other hand, Chinese college English grammar teaching centers on the question of "how it is taught" at present rather than "whether it should be taught or not" as it did in the latter half of the20century. That is where implicit learning theory finds its way in college English grammar instruction when faced with complex college English grammar, traditional explicit instruction and the less satisfying teaching result. Furthermore, a succession of experiments have been conducted and served as the proof of its application and effectiveness in college English grammar instruction.Based on these investigations and the implicit learning theory in the second language acquisition, this thesis analyzes the current situation of Chinese college English teaching, points out the problem of only-knowledge-focus in college English grammar instruction, and attempts to propose a hypothesis of combining the implicit instruction with the traditional explicit instruction in college English grammar teaching before testing it by an experiment carried out in120non-English majors in Henan University of Economics and Law. The results of this experiment can provide reference for college English grammar teaching.The research question is how to integrate the explicit instruction and implicit instruction effectively in college English grammar teaching and test out its effectiveness under the guidance of implicit learning theory. The question can be specified into three in this experiment:1) How can the implicit instruction be integrated with the traditional explicit instruction in college English grammar teaching?2) What is the effect of integrating the explicit and implicit grammar instruction?3) Why does this instruction have such an effect?First of all, the thesis introduces the research background, questions, instrument and significance. Secondly, it reviews the implicit learning theory and the current situation of college English grammar teaching. After that, it works out a practical and effective way to integrate the implicit instruction and the explicit instruction in college English grammar teaching and further tests out its effectiveness in order to upgrade the college English grammar teaching. In the experiment, the participants were120non-English-majored freshmen from two intact classes of Henan University of Economics and Law. They were assigned to two experimental groups randomly for a one-term experiment of English grammar teaching. The experimental group received the implicit-and-explicit instruction, and the control group received traditional explicit instruction. Data were collected from the tests before and after the experiment, the questionnaire and the interview after the experiment.The result of the research is that1) based on the unique characteristics of college English grammar, the current situation of college English grammar teaching and the features of implicit learning, the multi-media devices should be applied, the teaching material with simulated authentic context which always integrate voices, images, words and motions be used, and the campus autonomous learning platform also be setup in order to integrate the implicit instruction with the explicit instruction2) there is a significant difference between experimental group and control group in learning effect, which includes both grammatical knowledge and grammatical competence3) the integration of implicit instruction and explicit instruction can make use of each instruction’s advantages and compensate for their weaknesses, therefore, it can optimize and upgrade the college English grammar teaching effect.The result reveals that in college English grammar teaching, any available teaching material and teaching tool should be applied to provide the learners with vivid grammar learning environment, enhance their learning interest and pave the way for the internalization of explicit grammatical knowledge for implicit grammatical competence. Meanwhile, all the limitations and challenges existed in the experiment manifest that in a non-native language environment the growth of grammatical knowledge, the internalization of explicit grammatical knowledge for implicit grammatical competence and the improvement of grammar competence are a long and dynamic process, therefore the explicit mechanism and the implicit one should be combined in the English grammar teaching and learning.