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In:Implicit and Explicit Learning of Languages
Edited by Patrick Rebuschat
[Studies in Bilingualism 48] 2015
► pp. 387–416

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Implicit learning of a L2 morphosyntactic rule, and its relevance for language teaching

ORCiD logo with link | University of Maryland, College Park
 | University of Maryland, College Park
 | University of Maryland, College Park
 | University of Maryland, College Park
Published online: 24 September 2015
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.48.16kac
In a study of implicit learning of an artificial L2 morphosyntactic rule, 65 adult native speakers of English were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: incidental, intentional, or control. Participants in the experimental conditions were trained on sentences containing a determiner phrase, the word order in which varied if an adjective was present. On a GJT, both experimental groups performed above chance on the simplest rule of noun-determiner ordering; only the intentional group learned the more complex adjective-determiner-noun order. No participants learned a third, generalization structure not encountered in training. Given similar findings from other experiments, we suggest that implicit L2 learning by adults may be constrained, but has an important role in a cognitive-interactionist approach to language teaching.
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