This study examines whether aural processing of input in a situation
of implicit instruction can build a knowledge base that is available for
both comprehension and production tasks. Fifty-five Dutch students learned
a miniature linguistic system based on Spanish. Three training conditions
were compared in which noun-adjective gender agreement was the learning
target. The first group of participants received receptive training, the
second group received receptive and productive training, and a third group
served as a control. The control group received no training of the target
structure and only read an explanation of the target structure rule.
Receptive knowledge was assessed with a self-paced listening test, a
match-mismatch test, and a grammaticality judgment task. Productive
knowledge was tested with a picture description task in single- and
dual-task conditions. A postexperimental questionnaire tested whether any
explicit knowledge had been induced. Results suggest that the receptive
and receptive + productive training programs succeeded in building a
knowledge base that was used in comprehension but much less so in
production. These results will be interpreted in light of processing and
the distinction between implicit and explicit knowledge.I would like to express my gratitude to Jan Hulstijn and Rob
Schoonen from the University of Amsterdam for their supervision. I would
also like to thank the two anonymous SSLA reviewers for their
comments and Nick Ellis for taking time to discuss this project with
me.