Implicit vs. Explicit Second Language Instruction: Concept and Paradigm

The communicative approach in foreign language instruction arguably is supposed to approximate a real-world setting to certain extent; but, it all too often falls short of providing a realistic context for the language to be used in all its possible variations. The fact that languages are dynamic and change is rarely recognized outside of the classroom due to the static nature of texts and pre-conceived syllabi employed. Likewise, the kinds of contrastive and overly explicit teaching methods employed by many instructors simplify the complexity of a daily language transaction or real-world experience too much. If language learning is to be internalized through any kind of implicit approach, the implicit nature of teaching must come from the fact that the internal processing mechanisms operate from the input taken directly from the environment and are not directly dependent on the learner’s personal attempts to produce the language themselves. This means that explicit instruction methods must be combined so that speech habits may be formalized to take advantage of these initial efforts to provide a foundation for the kind of “strategies-based” instruction to be performed. Instructors may direct language learner’s to employ the strategies they are taught to overcome the speech difficulties and cultural misunderstanding that are part of using a foreign language outside your own culture.