El debate sobre el papel de la gramática explícita en la enseñanza de idiomas ha sido largo y variado en el campo de la lingüística aplicada. Algunos estudios sugieren que los tratamientos de gramática explícita no ofrecen ventajas, mientras que otros argumentan que pueden mejorar la atención del estudiante y, por ende, su aprendizaje. Para investigar esto, se llevó a cabo un estudio con 158 estudiantes de español, asignados aleatoriamente a cuatro grupos experimentales y un grupo de control. Los grupos recibieron diferentes tratamientos de gramática explícita que diferían con respecto a su multimodalidad. Los resultados indicaron que la efectividad de la gramática explícita parece depender de varios factores, incluyendo la estructura meta y la complejidad de la información en sí. En el caso de las condicionales hipotéticas, el grupo que recibió la gramática explícita de forma escrita, narrada y con acentuaciones síncronas mostró un rendimiento significativamente superior al grupo de control. Esto sugiere que la estructura y la calidad de la instrucción explícita son cruciales para su efectividad.
The role of explicit information (EI) has long been debated in second language acquisition. Numerous studies in the literature report null effects for EI, while an equal number highlight its facilitative potential. Previous research on this point varies on several levels, from target structure to frequency of access and, perhaps most importantly, quality of EI. In an attempt to gauge whether the nature of EI may explain the disparity of results in the literature, a pretest-posttest study was conducted to examine the differential effects of four types of EI on the learning of real and hypothetical Spanish conditionals. 158 learners were randomly assigned to four different EI conditions: group 1, (n=34), received EI in the form of a text, audio, enhancement and indexing (i.e., animations linking parts of EI to relevant portions of model sentences), group 2 received the same but no indexing (n=36), group 3 received text and audio (n=38), and, lastly, group 4 (n=34) received the information in text form only. A control group was added to obtain a baseline (n=16). Results from Grammaticality Judgment Tests administered prior and after treatment indicate that for real conditionals, EI was of no consequence. In the case of hypotheticals, however, findings showed that group 1, which received EI with text, audio, enhancing and indexing, exhibited superior performance, as shown by the statistical difference with respect to the control group, as well as with respect to the group receiving EI in auditory and written form only. These findings indicate that not all EI are equal and suggest that the nature of explicit information is a modulating factor in its effectiveness, at least for some grammatical targets.
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