Teaching English Grammar Penny Ur 2015

Implicit and explicit grammar teaching

1.2 Implicit and explicit knowledge

• Implicit knowledge is ‘I get it right without thinking or analyzing’
• Explicit knowledge is ‘I think and analyze in order to get it right’.
• Our ultimate aim is for our students to achieve implicit knowledge of grammar.

Implicit and explicit teaching

Implicit teaching: just providing exposure to and use of the grammar without explaining or applying explicit rules.

Explicit teaching: explaining and applying rules.

The question:

Does implicit teaching lead to our goal of implicit knowing?

Implicit teaching

• Providing comprehensible input (Krashen, 1983)
• Encouraging students to produce output (Swain, 1995)
• Task-based learning (Skehan, 2003)
• Exposing students to exemplars of grammatical forms and meanings
• N. Ellis (2002): frequency
• Meunier & Granger (2008): formulaic sequences