overall Knowledge Gains
Implicit vs Explicit Knowledge Gains
Results
L2 (Second Language) learners seemed to benefit from explicit instruction of the Spanish subjunctive. Explicit L2 learners had an improvement between their initial knowledge and their knowledge after receiving explicit instruction. When tested again in the delayed post test, these learners had a decrease in correct responses from the post test, but they seemed to retain most of the knowledge they had gained. Compared to the control group, the explicit group retained more of the knowledge they had gained from instruction in the delayed post test.
HL (Heritage Learners) learners seemed to marginally benefit from explicit instruction, however it seemed to take longer for the knowledge to solidify than it did for L2 learners and the HL learners did not improve to the same magnitude as the L2 learners.
L2 learners benefited from implicit instruction. They scored better in the post and delayed post tests than in the pre test. Because the post and delayed post test scores were the same, the knowledge L2 learners gained from implicit instruction was retained over time. However, the magnitude of their improvement was not as high as it was for the explicit group.
HL learners also benefited from implicit instruction. They scored better only in the delayed post test, so this may mean that the knowledge took longer to solidify than for L2 learners. Again, the magnitude of their improvement was not as high as it was for the control group.
L2 learners generally gained explicit knowledge, as shown through the AJT (Acceptability Judgment Task). For the explicit instruction group, L2 learners retained that knowledge through the delayed post test. The implicit instruction group actually showed a greater score in the delayed post test than in the post test, which may signify that implicit instruction could take longer to solidify than explicit instruction.
However, these learners did not gain as much implicit knowledge. L2 learners in the explicit instruction group showed no improvement from the pre to post test in the EIT (Elicited Imitation Task), but did improve in the delayed post test. Those in the implicit instruction group seemed to improve at a steadier pace and ended up getting more answers correct at the delayed post test than the explicit group. This could signify that it takes longer to solidify implicit knowledge than explicit knowledge when exposed to explicit instruction, but not when exposed to implicit instruction.
HL learners in the explicit instruction group gained some explicit knowledge from pre to post test, but did not retain the knowledge in the delayed post test. These learners gained more implicit knowledge than explicit knowledge, but only in the delayed post test. The implicit instruction group did not fare as well; these learners lost implicit and explicit knowledge throughout the study. However, the HL control group scored very low on their post tests (EIT) and delayed post tests (AJT and EIT), so these results may not be completely accurate.