Earticle

There has been ongoing controversy over the importance of explicit knowledge in SLA. Regarding the controversy over the role of explicit knowledge, three major issues need to be addressed: the nature of learners’ explicit knowledge, the relationship between learners’ explicit and implicit knowledge, and the interface of explicit and implicit knowledge. The present study is motivated by the third issue of possible interfaces between explicit and implicit knowledge. For the purpose of the present study, the study first discusses theoretical issues regarding the interface debate and then seeks to find the answer for the debate of interface or non-interface by investigating empirical evidence. Although no studies were intended to address interfacing, the present study identifies and examines those studies which have the potential to address this issue. The investigation of this study suggests that studies reviewed did not show any impact for explicit knowledge through explicit instruction on free production tasks (especially oral) suggesting a non-interface between explicit and implicit knowledge