How to develop implicit language knowledge – Focusing on input

In the previous blog post, I attempted to explain the difference between implicit and explicit language knowledge. I also tried to show why it is much more important for language learners to focus on developing implicit language knowledge rather than explicit language knowledge. Therefore, in this blog post, I am going to try and show you how you can develop your implicit language knowledge.

When using English to develop implicit language knowledge, it is important to make sure that you are doing activities that involve ‘real’ communication, or what is often called ‘communicative’ activities. This means that you are not just trying to ‘study’ the language by doing grammar or vocabulary exercises, but actually doing something where the focus is on the meaning. For example, this could include:

• Talking to a friend in English about everyday topics, e.g. complaining about the weather, asking for advice about restaurants in your area, etc.
• Watching a film or TV series on Netflix/YouTube, etc. for your own enjoyment
• Reading a textbook, journal article, website, etc. to gain some knowledge about a specific subject, e.g. for your work or studies.

These are just a few examples of the many different ways in which you might use English for a real-world purpose that makes these activities ‘communicative’. Basically, almost anything that you might normally do in Chinese that you then do in English instead would count as a communicative activity. However, you probably wouldn’t read or listen to a text in Chinese and then try to learn some grammar or vocabulary from the text, unless perhaps you happen to be studying Chinese language at university. You also probably wouldn’t do exercises in Chinese to help you learn Chinese grammar or vocabulary and then do an activity to practise using this grammar or vocabulary. Doing the same kinds of activities in English, where the focus is on using a specific piece of grammar or vocabulary rather than on the message you are trying to communicate, also wouldn’t really be a communicative activity. This is because the purpose of these types of activities would be to focus on the language rather than the message, but ‘communicative’ activities have a focus on the message, not the language.

When taking part in these kinds of ‘communicative’ activities that I have described above, you are interacting with input (reading and listening). Meaningful interaction (having a real-world purpose to communicate) with input is essential to help develop your implicit language knowledge. The reason for this is that meaningful interaction with input can help us to process language. When we process language, our brains are making a connection between the form (language, e.g. grammar and vocabulary) and the meaning of the message that is being communicated. If we are doing grammar exercises, for example, there is unlikely to be any meaningful message being communicated because the focus is on the language and so we are much less likely to process the language. When our brains process language, this helps to subconsciously (without awareness) build up our implicit language knowledge.

So, you can see from what I have written above that getting lots of input is really important to help us develop implicit language knowledge. However, it’s not only the quantity of input that is important but also the quality of that input. In the next blog post, I will share some advice about how to ensure that you can get better quality input.