〈Applied Liguistics and TESOL〉Investigating L2 Implicit Knowledge in an Instructed Setting

The study investigated implicit knowledge of second language (L2) learners in an instructed setting.The purpose of the investigation was to highlight L2 implicit knowledge and reveal its nature.Before the investigation, it firstly agreed with R. Ellis's (2005) concerns that SLA research has not given due consideration to implicit and explicit knowledge as constructs.Then, it reviewed the characteristics of implicit knowledge in some SLA literatures and has found that awareness, automaticity, focus on meaning and systematicity are considered as primary characteristics of implicit knowledge.In order to make further examination of these characteristics, the study examined EFL learners in an institutional setting in Japan.After observing instructions, it administered the four tests which were confirmed to elicit implicit and explicit knowledge, separately in R. Ellis's psychometric study (2005).The Timed Grammaticality Judgement Test (TGJT) and the Elicited Oral Imitation Test (EI) were predicted to elicit implicit knowledge, whereas the Untimed Grammaticality Judgement Test (UGJT) and the Metalinguistic Knowledge Test (MKT) were predicted to elicit explicit knowledge.It found that EI elicited implicit knowledge while TGJT, UGJT and MKT tapped into explicit knowledge.The finding provided evidence that production tasks which require learners to focus on meaning are more likely to induce learner's implicit knowledge, while tasks which had time pressure was not necessarily effective for eliciting it.