Winitz: Grammaticality Judgment

Grammaticality Judgment as a Function of Explicit and Implicit Instruction in Spanish

On my first day of French in high school, my French teacher, for whom it was her first year of teaching in the U.S., spoke in her native French the entire class. She spoke as one might speak to experienced French language learners, not a beginner class. This first foray into immersion was not an intentional exercise in implicit instruction (rather, it was the lack of experience in an American classroom). After this day, she shifted to the more classic explicit instruction. We had very structured classroom instruction with clear grammar lessons.

I had this teacher for all four years of high school. By my fourth year, our lessons became more implicit. This shift in instruction, aligns with one of the several approaches outlined by Winitz. It would be interesting to know how effective this approach is. The article focuses on the study examining classes that rely strictly either on explicit and implicit instruction. The findings showed that the implicit group scored higher than explicit group. Another benefit of this type of instruction is the motivation factor. If a more implicit-focused grammar instruction means greater motivation, there is certainly something to be said for it!

One question that remains after reading this article, is raised by Winitz--what is the effect of prior explicit or implicit knowledge on implicit or explicit instruction, respectively, received later on?