Effects Of Explicit/Implicit Instruction And Cognitive Style On EFL Learners’ Acquisition Of The Simple Past

Grammar instruction has always been a hot issue in SLA.There is no consensus about whether explicit instruction is more effective or vice versa.What is more,with the prevalence of the “student-oriented” principle,more and more research has been conducted on individual differences.However,few existing studies have attempted to combine the two variables for in-depth analysis.Based on previous research,the present study controlled the two variables of instruction type and cognitive style via an instructional experiment and explored the questions:(1)What are the differential effects of explicit and implicit instruction on the acquisition of the simple past by learners of the same cognitive styles?(2)What are the differential effects of field dependence and field independence on the acquisition of the simple past by learners receiving the same instructional treatment?(3)What are the interactive effects of instructional treatment and cognitive style on EFL learners’ acquisition of the simple past?Participants in the current study were 142 second-year EFL learners from a public middle school in a southern province in China.The participants were divided into four experimental groups and two control groups: an explicit instruction group of field independents(N=25),an explicit instruction group of field dependents(N=24),an implicit instruction group of field independents(N=25),an implicit instruction group of field dependents(N=22),a control group of field independents(N=25)and a control group of field dependents(N=21).Before the instructional treatment,a pretest and Embedded Figures Test were administered to measure learners’ proficiency in the target forms and to categorize their cognitive style.Next,the experimental groups received different instructional treatments for 90 minutes.After the instructional treatment,an immediate posttest was administered and after two weeks,a delayed posttest was carried out.Three findings were generalized from the results:(1)For field independents,no matter in the immediate posttest or in the delayed posttest,there was no significant difference between explicit instruction and implicit instruction.For field dependents,the explicit instruction group significantly outperformed the implicit instruction group in the immediate posttest but there was no significant difference between the two groups in the delayed posttest.(2)With explicit instruction,there was no significant difference between field independents and field dependents in both the immediate posttest and the delayed posttest.With implicit instruction,field independents significantly outperformed field dependents in the immediate posttest but this difference disappeared in the delayed posttest though the performance of field independents was still better than that of field dependents.(3)There was a significant interactive effect between instruction type and cognitive style in the immediate posttest on the acquisition of the simple past and explicit instruction improved the performance of field dependents much more than implicit instruction.The current study enriched research on instruction type and cognitive style.And it offered some pedagogical suggestions for grammar instruction.