Assessing the effect of focused direct and focused indirect written corrective feedback on explicit and implicit knowledge of language learners

Language Testing in Asia

Table 1 Key characteristics of implicit and explicit knowledge (Adapted from Ellis, 2005)

Characteristics	Implicit knowledge	Explicit knowledge
Awareness	Intuitive awareness of linguistic norms	Conscious awareness of linguistic norms
Type of knowledge	Procedural knowledge of rules and fragments	Declarative knowledge of grammatical rules and fragments
Systematicity	Variable but systematic knowledge	Anomalous and inconsistent knowledge
Accessibility	Access to knowledge by means of automatic processing	Access to knowledge by means of controlled processing
Use of L2 knowledge	Access to knowledge during fluent performance	Access to knowledge during planning difficulty
Self-report	Nonverbalizable	Verbalizable
learnability	Potentially only within critical period	Any age