The Role of Consciousness in L2 Acquisition

1. Learners

1.1. learn implicitly when they know rules that guide their performance without any awareness of what the rules consist of

1.2. learn explicitly when they may have the knowledge about the L2 but be unable to use this knowledge in performance without conscious attention.

2. Explicit knowledge

2.1. It may aid learners in developing implicit knowledge in a number of ways:

2.1.1. Explicit knowledge may only convert into implicit knowledge when learners are at the right stage of development.

2.1.2. Explicit knowledge may facilitate the process by which learners attend to features in the input.

2.1.3. Explicit knowledge may help learners to move from intake to acquisition by helping them to notice the gap between what they have observed in the input and current state of their interlanguage as manifested in their own output.

3. L2 learners, especially adults, seem to have work hard and to study the language consciously in order to succeed.

4. Krashen’s

4.1. He claims that the two knowledge systems, learned and acquired L2 knowledge, are independent, and both of them cannot be converted.

5. Schmidt

5.1. Argues that no matter whether learning is intentional or incidental, it involves conscious attention to features in the input.

5.2. He also claims that learning cannot take place without noticing.