Syntes: Kang, Sok & Han (2019) — only a minor difference between explicit and implicit L2 instruction

Källa: Kang, E. Y., Sok, S. & Han, Z. (2019). Thirty-five years of ISLA on form-focused instruction: A meta-analysis. Language Teaching Research 23(4), 428–453. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168818776671

Verified content

• [abstract] 54 empirical studies, 5,051 second-language learners, drawn from six journals (Applied Linguistics, Language Learning, Language Teaching Research, The Modern Language Journal, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, TESOL Quarterly), covering 1980–2015.
• [abstract] Overall effect of L2 instruction: g = 1.06, 95% CI 0.84 to 1.29.
• [abstract] "While a minor difference was detected between explicit and implicit instruction, statistically significant effects were found for modes of outcome measures, learners’ onset L2 proficiency, research settings, and intensity of instruction."

Limits

• [assessment] Abstract only; the paper is closed. The abstract does not give the size or the direction of the explicit–implicit difference, nor a split by delayed or free-production tests. Open question 21 already notes secondary summaries of its tables; those numbers are not quoted here because they were not read in this paper.

Why it is in the library

C24 says explicit teaching produces larger gains than implicit teaching. This later meta-analysis, built from the same journals, reports only a minor difference between the two — the known challenge sitting in open question 21.

Added 2026-11-08 by the project (weekly source sweep, kind: old (major review); read: abstract). [abstract] = from the published abstract; [full text] = read in the full text; [assessment] = the project's own assessment.