Interactions Between Type of Instruction and Type of Language Feature: A Meta‐Analysis

Abstract

A meta-analysis was conducted to investigate the effects of explicit and implicit instruction on the acquisition of simple and complex grammatical features in English. The target features in the 41 studies contributing to the meta-analysis were categorized as simple or complex based on the number of criteria applied to arrive at the correct target form (Hulstijn & de Graaff, 1994). The instructional treatments were classified as explicit or implicit following Norris and Ortega (2000). The results indicate larger effect sizes for explicit over implicit instruction for simple and complex features. The findings also suggest that explicit instruction positively contributes to learners' controlled knowledge and spontaneous use of complex and simple forms.Keywords instructed SLA; explicit/implicit instruction; explicit/implicit knowledge; meta-analysis In the instructed second language acquisition (SLA) literature there is a general consensus that instruction is beneficial for second language (L2) development (Ellis, 2001;Norris & Ortega, 2000;Spada, 1997). Several issues remain, however, including what types of knowledge and language abilities benefit We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers who provided constructive input and valuable feedback on an earlier version of the manuscript. We are particularly grateful for the information and guidance from one of the reviewers with particular expertise in conducting meta-analyses. Although the article has improved considerably from the input from all reviewers, we alone are responsible for any errors or omissions.

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