Implicit vs Explicit Learning

How did we learn our first language growing up? It certainly wasn’t with our parents sitting down with a dictionary telling us words and holding the objects up. It was closer to actual interaction. Or have you ever traveled abroad? Maybe you picked up a couple of words while you were there that you didn’t know before. Maybe a “Bonjour” (French for hello) or a “Comment ça va?” (French for how are you?), but you probably weren’t told a translation at the same time. You picked it up from the context of the interaction. The difference between that and a language class is small but important. It’s the difference between mostly implicit and mostly explicit learning. In explicit learning, we learn by having things taught directly to us, with no ambiguity and little room for interpretation. Implicit learning gets trickier. Learning occurs with no direct teaching. You might not know what “Comment ça va?” means the first time you hear it, but you certainly will after the 10th time even with nobody translating it for you, nobody speaking in English, and nobody trying to explain it to you. In this section, we will dive deeper into what both of these types of learning look like in practice.

As Ellis (2015) puts it, explicit learning is “a more conscious operation where the individual makes and tests hypotheses in a search for structure”. This could look like many things. Maybe you are filling out vocabulary worksheets and matching the English word to your target language word. Maybe you are in class and the teacher is pointing to something red and saying “vermelho” (Portuguese for red). By contrast, “Implicit learning is acquisition of knowledge… by a process which takes place naturally, simply and without conscious operations”. (Ellis, 2015). We know what explicit learning can look like from many of our classroom experiences, but what does implicit learning look like put into practice?

Let’s meet Faith. Faith is the author of our Cultural and Intercultural Competence chapter. At the time of writing this book, she is studying Japanese and pursuing her SLAT (Second Language Acquisition and Teaching) certification. She is passionate about language learning because she believes language can serve as an invaluable tool for fostering understanding and connecting with others across diverse cultures. She’s committed to building bridges through language learning and hopes to inspire others to do the same. Faith will be our teacher today in a Japanese lesson on fruits. Try your best to pick up on patterns if you don’t speak Japanese already. Which words are repeated in each sentence? Which words are different in each sentence? To make it easier, we will highlight some keywords and provide visuals. As in previous exercises, please take notes! There will be a quiz. When you click the link below, also click on closed captions at the bottom of the screen to be able to read the Japanese kanji and the romanized version.

Fruit with Faith Video

How did that quiz go for you? Was it easier with the visuals provided? Maybe it was easier because it was all given to you explicitly. Did you happen to pick up on any other repeated words, though? Maybe I lied. There won’t be one quiz, but two!

As you can see, this second quiz dealt with vocabulary that Faith didn’t talk about explicitly. If you picked up on any of these words (and don’t speak Japanese already), these are words that you learned from Faith implicitly. Are you starting to understand? Learning occurs anytime we are exposed to something new, whether that be a language, science concept, math, etc… How the learning happens differs based on context. By being aware of different ways of learning, we can get more out of the input we take in. You might not know how to say “This is a strawberry” off the top of your head in Japanese now, but you are likely to recognize that same sentence structure. With repeated exposure to implicit content, learning takes place, and we can learn ideas that we were never explicitly taught. Learning is a skill, so let’s start being aware of both types of learning because once we are aware, we can better use that knowledge and start practicing those skills.