Which is your preferred style of teaching?

A comparison of the benefits of explicit versus implicit instruction

Agenda

• Definitions of implicit and explicit• Group activity• Benefits of each for students and teachers• When and why?• Closing thoughts• Questions

Let’s define implicit and explicit.

Implicit

• Student centered• Learning through example• Communicative• Inductive/intuitive• Spontaneous• Exposure to language in

use

Explicit• Teacher centered• Guided instruction for

understanding rules• Clear goals• Deductive• Models, explanation and

practice

Do you have a preference?

Lets do an activity and find out!

Benefits to the student

Implicit• Contextualized: students

see the relevance to everyday usage

• Encourages students to produce/speak

• Students create their own way of understanding rules which enables long-term memory retention

Explicit• Some students benefit from

a structured approach• Develop understanding

through rigorous practice• Logical thought-process• Starts with little student

responsibility and ends with goal of student autonomy with little teacher involvement

Top Notch

• Deliberate and intensive recycling

• Controlled practice to free-flowing activities

• Explicit grammar syllabus.

• Clear goals leading to a final assignment

• Memorable conversation models

English in Common

• All lessons feature pair work and group work speaking activities.

• Developing active learners.

• Guided discovery approach to grammar that invites learners to think about grammar examples and work out the rules for themselves

• Personalized practice.

With which type of students would you use an implicit teaching approach?

Picking up a language

Prepare for natural, communicative situations where rules are often forgotten or broken.

The way we acquire our very first language at an early age.

With which type of students would you use an explicit teaching approach?

“knowing the rules” of a language.

Pointing out the particularities of a language, the exceptions.

Closing thoughts

“Although it is essential to teach elements of language and develop communicative abilities in our students, there is no one best way to introduce and provide practice in them.

Young learners have more natural facility in acquisition, while adults may benefit substantially from more "formal" language learning.

Learning styles and intelligence strengths are also a significant factor.”

Prof. Larry M. Lynch has taught EFL, published ELT articles as an expert author, presented at numerous TESOL conferences and trained teachers in the USA, Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador, Panama and Spain.

Robert DeKeyser

• “explicit and deductive learning is better than implicit for simple categorical rules”

• “Implicit learning is equally good as or ever better than explicit learning for prototypes”

• In addition, many researchers have found that “a combination of implicit and explicit learning may yield the best results”.