EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT TEACHING 1

Explicit and Implicit Teaching: How They Make a Difference in Learning

Lisa Cunningham

Department of Education, Wayne State University

English 6010: Tutoring Practicum

Dr. Jule Thomas

February 24th, 2022

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As an educator, one has many responsibilities. The most important? Making a student’s

learning successful. To achieve this goal as a teacher, there are many methods of instruction, as

well as teaching practices to apply to the instruction, to aid the students with their learning and

retainment of information. I have found, through my own experiences and through research, that

explicit teaching, when differentiated among students, can make the most positive impact on

students’ gain of information, as well as their experience in the classroom. Explicit Teaching,

which can also be referred to “Direct Instruction” is a best teaching practice in which the teacher

primarily and thoroughly leads the lesson, assignment, or task at hand within the classroom.

Opposite of this teaching method, called Implicit Teaching or “Indirect Instruction”, is also a

sufficient teaching method, which is more student-based. This type of instruction allows for the

students to work more independently and let them problem-solve to figure a certain assignment

or lesson out. Within this essay, I will discuss these ideas further, explaining how the best

teaching practice of “Explicit Teaching” is superior to other methods of instruction.

There are many ways for an instructor to initiate and present Explicit Teaching in a

classroom. Explicit teaching is a teacher-led method of instruction. This method allows for the

teacher to present thorough and important details and instructions for lessons in the classroom.

The teacher is to provide all students with detailed instructions on how to execute an assignment.

Teachers do this, mainly, in front of an entire class, so every student can follow along and

receive that awareness together. Teachers use this method of teaching to make requirements and

expectations of a lesson/assignment clear and understandable for the students, so they can

complete a provided assignment efficiently and successfully. By introducing and using this

method of instruction to teach students, the students will learn more and retain more about the

lesson in the long run, which can be and has been proven through tests that a student may take,
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such as a post-test, after learning and experiencing a lesson within a subject. In a study explained

in Philippa K. Bell’s scholarly article titled, “Explicit and Implicit Learning: Exploring Their

Simultaneity and Immediate Effectiveness,” there were three groups of participants who were

tested using two short stories and two crossword puzzles. These materials were administered to

the three groups. One of the groups had native English language speakers, one group contained

individuals whose first language was not English, and the third group had a mix of both English

native speakers and secondary speakers. These groups are significant, because the study was

given equally to all different English speakers, so as to not be discriminatory within the study

and to receive the fairest results. One group received the tasks of reading the short stories and

completing the crossword puzzles with no input (instructions), the next group completed the

given materials when the tasks were read out loud to them, and the third group completed the

tasks after being given comprehension instructions and clues. These activities introduced new

language information to all three groups. After the groups were finished with their short stories

and crosswords, they were distributed a “surprise” post-test to see how each group retained the

information and understood it the best. This is where the post-test result becomes more

significant. In the article, Bell writes, “EL has been found to lead to better performance than IL

on immediate posttests.” (Bell 2017). This is a very sensible conclusion, considering how much

more instruction and aid the participants in the third group received with explicit teaching

involved. This kind of teaching encourages students to use their knowledge they already possess,

the new knowledge they learn, the instructions they receive, as well as their own creativity

within an assignment and lesson to produce their best work. Aiding students with a layout of a

lesson not only aids them into a more successful outcome of the assignment, but they will also
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retain that information given more efficiently and faster because of the way they can keep

referring to the instructions as needed.

To continue, many times, before a student can welcome a lesson with an open mind, they

are to complete a pre-test. This is helpful for teachers to become more aware of what students

have prior knowledge of before they indulge in a new lesson in the classroom. After students are

almost to the finish line with a certain lesson or assignment after receiving such instruction like

explicit teaching, they are then usually due for a post-test. Both tests are useful for the teacher to

know how the students will do before explicit teaching is presented and then what they have

learned and how successful the lesson was for them and their learning after the teaching method

has been received. Regarding Bell’s article (2017):

Type of learning (IL or EL) was identified based on analyses of one on-line and two off-

line verbal reports. Sixteen participants were aware; 16 were unaware. Performance on

recognition and production posttests demonstrated that aware participants outperformed

unaware participants, who showed no pre- to posttest gains.” (p. 300).

Online and offline verbal reporting were important parts of this study. To explain, online verbal

reporting is where information is explained thoroughly and verbally to the recipient and the

recipient is dependent on this report. Offline verbal reporting is verbal information discussed

verbally to a recipient but excludes a lot of information that could aid the recipient to understand

a task better. The provided quote and Bell’s explained study proves that more aware, explicitly

taught students outperformed, or did much better, on the post-tests versus the students who were

not aware, nor taught more information, like the implicitly taught students. The explicitly taught

group was the third group as described above and received more instructions and clues on how to

go about the materials they were given. The implicitly taught groups were more so the first two
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groups in the study, as described above, who did not receive such information and instruction. I

do feel that implicit teaching has its benefits for the students, but explicit teaching seemingly

provides a much more adequate learning process to the students. Bell’s explained experiments

with students aids these ideas with facts about the reality of students and how the art of added

knowledge can make a difference in learning and retaining information.

Not only is there an explicit method of teaching, but this is also carries on to the explicit

method of feedback, which both counteract each other. Explicit Feedback is where an instructor

talks a student, clearly explaining where they may have gone wrong with the lesson, their

assignment, etc. This type of feedback works greatly with people who are learning to acquire a

second language. To add, in author Yucel Yilmez scholarly articled titled, “Relative Effects of

Explicit and Implicit Feedback: The Role of Working Memory Capacity and Language Analytic

Ability (2013), he writes:

The feedback types that lean toward the more implicit end of the continuum involve no

(a) metalinguistic terminology or metalinguistic rules and are indirect regarding (b) the

accuracy of the learner’s utterance (e.g. recasts, clarification requests), whereas the

feedback types that lean toward the more explicit end contain (a) (e.g. metalinguistic

feedback) and/or are direct about (b) (e.g. explicit correction). The proponents of FonF

have championed implicit feedback types, such as recasts because of their potential to

provide learners with negative evidence without interrupting learners’ processing for

meaning. Other researchers have favored explicit feedback because it does not require the

learner to infer whether there is an error, the location of the error and how it should be

corrected. (p. 351).

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As stated in the quote, Metalinguistics is an aspect of linguistics that discusses and studies the

relation between language and how it relates to other cultural aspects of a society. To provide

further explanation of the quote, “learner’s utterance” is defined by the way a learner, especially

a person learning a second language, tends to utter or say things as they learn them. These

definitions are significant to the study explained in Yilmez’s article, about second language

learners and how they are taught and what is more beneficial to them: explicit teaching or

implicit teaching.

To provide further analysis of the quote provided directly above, it signifies the ideas and

benefits of explicit teaching/feedback versus implicit teaching/feedback. It clearly discusses how,

when students are learning, especially a second language, they need more than indirect feedback

from their instructor. Explicit feedback provides the student learning the language sufficient

feedback so they can learn their mistakes and fix them, being able to acquire the language at a

faster pace. Being aware of one’s mistakes and receiving an explanation and further instruction

om how to work on them is a lot more beneficial for the student’s learning, rather than letting the

student figure it out on their own, without clarification. I feel that letting students work

independently on something is very beneficial, to build confidence and knowledge within

themselves and learn something on their own. Those are great skills to gain. But I think that

within explicit feedback/teaching, having clear, constructive, and consistent feedback from one’s

instructor and still being able to possess independency within a lesson is much more

advantageous for the students, as well as for the instructor.

To further provide for these claims, there is more information to add that is beneficial to

know for all instructors. In Yilmez’s article (2013) it reads:

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The results of this study suggest that cognitive abilities should be taken into account

when comparing the effectiveness of explicit and implicit feedback because learners with

different cognitive strengths can benefit from these feedback types to varying degrees. In

order to determine the complete set of cognitive skills facilitating the processing of each

feedback type, future research should address the effects of other cognitive variables. (p.

363).

This quote depicts a great point to be noted. Though there are certain methods of instruction that

may work better, there are all types of methods of teaching that can be used in the diversified

educational system we have in America, and all around the world. All students learn differently.

It is important to realize this and consider which method of instruction will be suitable for all

students. Teaching methods could also be differentiated among students in the same classroom as

well! Some students may need more help than others and having options of instruction/feedback

are every helpful in terms of learning. This is an important idea for teachers to be aware of when

conducting lessons in a classroom, because there are many different cognitive (learning) abilities

that students possess more so than others. Some students are more hands-on type of learners,

some are more auditory learners, some are more visual learners, some are more reading/writing

learners, and the list proceeds. These various types of learners need to be catered to in every

aspect of a lesson. To do this, teachers can incorporate all these different ways that students learn

best, into one lesson with activities, instructions, projects, presentations, and more.

To build on previous ideas, there is correlating and questionable evidence about both

explicit teaching/knowledge and implicit teaching/knowledge. Many people of society think that

since both methods of instruction provide benefits of learning for the students, they are both
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equally as applicable for learning in the classroom. According to study explained by author Rod

Ellis (2006), it is reported:

“Using a battery of tests that were designed to measure implicit and explicit L2

grammatical knowledge of seventeen grammatical structures, learning difficulty in

relation to these two types of knowledge was investigated. The results showed that

structures that were easy in terms of implicit knowledge were often difficult in terms of

explicit knowledge and sometimes vice versa and that, overall, there was no correlation

between the rank orders of difficulty of seventeen grammatical structures for the two

types of knowledge. A correlational analysis showed that the structures varied as to

whether it was implicit or explicit knowledge of them that was related to a measure of

general language proficiency. A regression analysis demonstrated that both types of

knowledge predict general language proficiency. (p. 445).

Regarding this quote and several other claims made by Ellis within this article, as well as my

own personal opinions, I agree. Regarding learning second languages, reading, writing, or

grammar, I do feel that explicit knowledge/teaching is the best process to apply in the classroom.

This type of learning gives the student more feedback about things they may need to work on,

what they should learn more about, and what they may be succeeding on! Implicit

knowledge/teaching is also beneficial, but for students who may enjoy working more

independently and don’t prefer a whole lot of feedback. Implicit Teaching is an appropriate

method of teaching for students to have the chance to express their own knowledge and

creativity more, but I feel this method just isn’t as efficient, nor beneficial for learners as much

as explicit teaching is. Explicit Teaching not only allows for students to receive descriptions or a

layout for how they should go about completing an assignment, but they also get to incorporate
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their own ideas and creativeness into it at the same time! Explicit Teaching offers plenty more

benefits for learning and success for the students and the instructor than Implicit Teaching does.

To note, differentiated instruction between explicit and implicit teaching should also be a

consideration of all instructors for all different types of learners. This is especially represented

through the quote from Ellis’s article directly above. The study that was explained in Ellis’s

article, about second language learners, simply states that both types of learning/teaching,

explicit and implicit, are necessary for the success of knowledge when learning a language.

(2006). I find this to be a broad statement and it really depends on the student and their cognitive

(learning) abilities, but I do feel it is important to incorporate both types of teaching, explicit and

implicit, into the classroom. As stated, they both provide great benefits for students and their

learning. It is beneficial to switch between the two types of methods in a classroom, or even try

to incorporate both within one lesson. This can certainly be done by making a part of a lesson

more teacher-led with lots of instruction, then creating part of the lesson to be more student-led,

allowing the students to build their own assignment/criteria and complete a task with less of a

layout.

Comprehensively, explicit teaching is a world-renowned method of instruction that

should be considered a primary teaching practice for all teachers. It does not discriminate against

any type of learner, and it provides extensive instruction and feedback for all types of learners

within the classroom. As an aspiring and future educator, I will certainly incorporate explicit

teaching into my classroom. I will do this by providing students with sufficient instructions and a

presentation for a lesson they will be learning about. I will provide great details on how they can

go about completing a certain assignment/project within the lesson and will even provide them

with some helpful examples and tools to start their completion/learning process. I think
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providing the students with various tools like presentations, layouts, writings, websites, and more

can really engage them and get them thinking about how they would like to complete the task at

hand. Presenting a layout or a descriptive analysis for students’ workload and progress

consistently allows for students to succeed efficiently throughout a lesson. They can also work

independently within this type of instruction, after receiving the direct teaching from their

educator. Explicit Teaching provides an inclusive education for all students, of all grades, for all

subjects.
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References

Bell, P. K. (2017). Explicit and implicit learning: exploring their simultaneity and immediate

effectiveness. Oxford Academy, Applied Linguistics. Volume 38, Issue 3. Pages

297–317. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/10.1093/applin/amv028

Ellis, R. (2006). Modelling learning difficulty and second language proficiency: the differential

contributions of implicit and explicit knowledge. Oxford Academy, Applied Linguistics.

Volume 27, Issue 3. Pages 431-463.

https://doiorg.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/10.1093/applin/aml022

Yilmaz, Y. (2012). Relative effects of explicit and implicit feedback: the role of working

memory capacity and language analytic ability. Oxford Academy, Applied Linguistics.

Volume 34, Issue 3. Pages 344-368. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/ams044