Writing Accuracy: Implicit Versus Explicit Instruction

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the effect of implicit and explicit instruction on the writing accuracy of Dutch secondary school students. To investigate this 430 Dutch learners of English were taught either implicitly (N=202) or explicitly (N=228) during the first two years of secondary education. At the end of the second year, they were given a written task. The results were analysed using an error analysis, divided into five categories: Lexical Errors, Word Order, Missing Word, Verb Use and Verb Form. The results showed that overall the explicit group scored better than the implicit group on Lexical Errors, Verb Use and Verb Form, but there are differences depending on the level of education that the students had. Explicit instruction seemed to be best for Verb Form in all cases, but for Verb Use the implicit group only made significantly more errors on vwo and mavo level, not on havo. Furthermore, the explicit group only scored significantly better on Lexical errors in havo, whereas in the other educational levels the results were not significant. No significant differences were found for Word Order and Missing Word. The results suggested that overall, implicit instruction negatively affected most of the measured errors, however when looking more closely the results differ depending on the educational level. The results show that overall explicit instruction seems to be better to prevent Verb Form errors. It is possible that implicit teaching only works well for the highest and the lowest scoring students, and explicit teaching does not give any extra positive effects either.