ABSTRACT
This chapter was motivated by the observation that asking students learning English to consciously attend to the target structure in direct instruction with explicit explanation of the target feature can impede the acquisition of implicit knowledge. They concluded that there is a dearth of evidence that a noticing instruction can be effective in assisting acquisition. A similar observation was made that implicit instruction consisting of enriched input worked better than a more explicit form of instruction consisting of enhanced input when the structure was a difficult one. This chapter examines these observations in the context of agreement asymmetries in L2 Arabic. Using a pretest–posttest design with two measures for implicit and explicit knowledge, it presents the results of a classroom intervention that compares the effects of incidental instruction (through the provision of enriched input) and direct explicit instruction (through the provision of enhanced input) in the development of implicit and explicit knowledge of numeral–noun agreement asymmetry. The chapter relates the findings to the broader discussion of input types in the acquisition of irregular structures.
