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Article Critiques: Explicit and Implicit Second Language Training Differentially

Affect the Achievement of Native-like Brain Activation Patterns.

Yini Chen

Colorado State University

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In the article written by Morgan-short, Steinhauer, Sanz, and Ullman (2012),

which is titled "explicit and implicit second language training differentially affect the

achievement of native-like brain activation patterns", the researchers attempted to

study whether explicit (traditional grammar-focused classroom setting) and implicit

(immersion settings) second language training had different influences on the neural

and behavioral processes of language learners in L2 syntactic processing. In order to

test the effect of the two language training, the researchers randomly divided 30 right-

handed English speakers into two groups for training and testing. The researchers

used an artificial language paradigm to vertically examine whether explicit training

(similar to traditional grammar-focused classroom settings) and implicit training

(similar to immersion settings) had different effects on neural (electrophysiological)

and behavioral (performance) measurements of syntactic processing. The participants

have taken three rounds of testing, including training, practice, and evaluation. The

electrophysiology (ERP) of violating syntactic word order and morpho-syntactic

consistency was measured, and the neurocognitive test of L2 memory was performed.

The test results showed that explicit training and implicit training do not have

different influences on the behavioral of second language learners. However, implicit

second language training had more effect on the subjects' neural than explicit training.

In this research, the choice of the subjects was very thoughtful. For example, a) to

avoid the differences in brain activity caused by being right-handed or left-handed, all

the participants were right-handed, and b) in order to avoid having subjects’ second
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language abilities affect the test results, all the participants had a low level of a second

language. However, there are still some doubts in this research.

The first critique of this article is the authors chose the subjects without

considering their social background other than their native language. According to

Stevens (1999), people's memory capacity is affected by social factors such as

education, age, healthy condition and so on. However, the study participants were all

healthy people between the ages of 20 and 25. The test results of a healthy group of

people at best stages of memory age cannot representative of the training outcomes of

the vast majority of language learners.

Another critique of this research is that when training and testing the trainees'

syntactic processing ability, the researchers mainly focused on the order of sentence

words, ignoring complex factors such as tense and context. In the process of real

language teaching, only word-order training for language learners cannot achieve the

effect of cultivating students’ syntactic processing ability because in the process of

syntactic processing, tense, context and other issues must be considered cannot be

separated. Thus, when we practice multiple syntactic aspects in both explicit and

implicit training, the results may not be the same.

The last critique that I have is when the researchers designed the training

methods, the explicit training was showed the structure of word order directly to the

students, and the implicit training just show the relevant sentences’ cards of the target

language without explaining their structure. However, in daily language teaching

activities, explicit training and implicit training are not only limited to the two narrow
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training methods mentioned in the article. Such as teach the sentences structure in the

language learner's native language (explicit training), or do not directly show the

sentences structure to the subjects, but always use the relevant sentence structure

during the dialogue (implicit training). Whether the researchers' data change when the

teacher trains the language learners in other explicit or implicit ways during language

training?

Conclusion

In the process of second language syntax teaching, the traditional grammar-

focused teaching method has always occupied the dominant position. The grammar-

focused method helps learners understand the syntactic structure of the second

language more clearly but at the same time, it also has some disadvantages, such as

limited utility for the practical conversation application of the second language.

However, this research provides some new insights into teaching for second language

for second language educators. For example, in addition to helping learners to

understand the grammatical structure of the second language in traditional ways, there

are also has some implicit ways that can help complement the traditional ways of

teaching syntax.

Reference

Stevens, F. C., Kaplan, C. D., Ponds, R. W., Diederiks, J. P., & Jolles, J. E. L. L. E. M.
E. R. (1999). How ageing and social factors affect memory. Age and ageing, 28(4),
379-384.