ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the absolute effect of formal instruction on the acquisition of the three grammatical structures by Chinese adolescent learners of English. The overall results seem to support the general conclusion that form-based classroom instruction facilitates SLA. However, our findings do not suggest that explicit instruction is always a better means of accelerating the rate of acquisition. Rather, they indicate that explicit instruction is more effective in teaching the less complex properties and structures such as the mapping of agent and patient to NP slots and the morphological properties of the passive construction. With respect to the more complex properties such as the semantic meanings of the present perfect, explicit instruction does not show any superiority to implicit instruction. More empirical studies are necessary to explore why explicit knowledge can be transferred into implicit knowledge and which method is most effective to accelerate this transference.
