Language Learning Notes

Implicit vs. Explicit Knowledge

• Implicit knowledge:
  • Knowing how to do something.
  • Not consciously available or verbalizable.
  • Accessed rapidly for fluent conversation.
  • Acquired through "learning by doing" and incidental learning.
• Explicit knowledge:
  • Facts learned about a language.
  • Consciously available and can be verbalized as rules.
  • Requires processing time to access.

Skill-Acquisition Theory

• Explicit knowledge can become implicit through automatization with lots of practice.

Two Paths to Implicit Knowledge

• Conscious learning leads to explicit knowledge, which becomes implicit through practice.
• Incidental learning leads directly to implicit knowledge.

Noticing vs. Acquisition

• Language noticing involves tasks that promote awareness of language features.
• Language acquisition involves tasks that provide opportunities for using the language.

Principles of Instructed Second Language Acquisition

• Focus on meaning.
• Focus on form.
• Develop implicit knowledge while not neglecting explicit knowledge.
• Extensive L2 input.
• Opportunities for output.
• Interaction in the second language.
• Assess free and controlled production.

Attention / Noticing

• Subjective awareness of language in the input.

Wes' Case (Schmidt, 1983)

• Young Japanese artist in Honolulu with no instruction.
• Good oral discourse competence but poor grammatical competence.
• Did not consult dictionaries or ask metalinguistic questions.
• Failed to incorporate new language.
• Noticing Hypothesis: Active processing of data is essential for learning.

Key Concepts

• Comprehensible input: Language that the learner understands but is slightly above their level.
• Incidental learning: Picking up aspects of the language without conscious intention."