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Chapter 2
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
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There are several major issues in second language acquisition (SLA), and two
key issues are: what external conditions to which learners are exposed aid in
L2 learning (Norris-Ortega 2000, Spada-Tomita 2010) and how these condi¬
tions interact with individual differences in learners (Dörnyei 2005). The
former issue is centered on second language input conditions and the effect of
these conditions on the second language learning process. One of these condi¬
tions is the explicit context (e.g., classroom), where learners are exposed to
explicit grammatical rules or equivalents of vocabulary items of a given second
language. On the other hand, in the implicit, extramural context, learners are
exposed to L2 input, but there is a lack of exposure to explicit grammatical
rules or vocabulary explanations. The second issue — the interaction of indi¬
vidual learner differences with the implicit and explicit contexts — focuses on
individual learner differences in a classroom setting and in the extramural
context.
As for the first issue, previous research has found that explicit teaching
contexts are more effective in the short run than implicit learning contexts
(Norris—Ortega 2000, Spada—Tomita 2010). Nevertheless, Grey et al. (2015)
point out that these findings are not surprising as explicit conditions nor¬
mally yield more comprehensible L2 input than implicit conditions (Ellis et al.
2009, Norris—Ortega 2000, Sanz 2005), i.e., in a classroom, L2 learners may
be exposed to comprehensible input, a kind of input which is relatively close
to and is only somewhat above the current level of proficiency of the learner
(Krashen 1982, 2009) more frequently than in a non-classroom setting. It is
important to underline, however, that this may create the somewhat mis¬
guided belief that implicit exposure conditions are less important. On the
contrary, implicit exposure conditions, such as EE activities where learners
can encounter a particular L2, English in this case, are equally important
because they provide meaningful contextualized opportunities for encounter¬
ing the given L2. Consequently, for effective L2 learning, implicit and ex¬
plicit exposure contexts should be combined (Nunan-Richards 2015, Richards
2015). It is equally important, therefore, to investigate how second language
acquisition takes place in the extramural L2 learning context.
As for the second issue, little research investigates learners’ individual
learner differences in the implicit, extramural context (for an exception, see
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