investigating the relationships among explicit-implicit teaching, biological age, and foreign language learning

This study aimed at investigating the relationships among explicit-implicit teaching, biological age, and foreign language learning.  The subjects of the study were 95 male and female first-year learners of English.  They were divided into four groups: two groups of adult subjects (16-60 years old), and two groups of young subjects (9-10 years old).  The treatment involved in the study included the following: one group of the adult and one group of the young subjects received explicit teaching of selected English vocabulary and grammar; meanwhile, the other two groups received implicit teaching of the same vocabulary and grammar.  In order to verify the effectiveness of the two treatments offered to the four groups, the researcher prepared and made use of an English Language Test, to be used as a pre and post measure.

Among other findings, there were statistically significant differences between the means of the scores of the four groups in the pre-test and their scores in the post-test, considering vocabulary, grammar, and total scores, in favor of the latter. In addition, it was found out that explicit treatment was significantly more effective than the implicit for the adult learners.  Moreover, implicit treatment was not significantly effective for improving adult subjects_ learning of grammar.  Furthermore, it made no difference for the young subjects to be taught explicitly or implicitly since there were no significant differences between the means of the scores of the young explicit and implicit groups in the post-test.

Finally, it could be recommended that further studies need to be conducted to study the factor of biological age and its relationships to foreign language learning.