This is an experimental study on the effect of explicit and implicit classroom input on the acquisition of English generics by L1-Najdi Arabic speakers. Following a feature-based contrastive analysis, acquisition difficulties are predicted with indefinite singular and bare plural contexts. The experiment included fifty-four students divided into two experimental groups and one uninstructed control group. One experimental group received implicit input by using genre analysis of texts reinforced with generic noun phrases (NPs), and the other group received explicit grammatical ‘focus on form’ on generics. Two instruments were used: a forced choice task and a sentence repetition task conducted as pre-tests, post-tests and delayed post-tests. The results showed a significant increase in the total scores of both experimental groups, but a long-term effect was only found with the explicit group. The forced choice task showed significant improvement in the explicit group’s accuracy on generic indefinite singular and bare plural contexts and long-term improvement on the bare plural. The explicit group’s results on the repetition task show temporary improvement in the generic indefinite singular post-test. In general, the results suggest that explicit input is more effective than implicit input. Implications on acquisition difficulties and instruction are discussed.

This is an experimental study on the effect of explicit and implicit classroom input on the acquisition of English generics by L1-Najdi Arabic speakers. Following a feature-based contrastive analysis, acquisition difficulties are predicted with indefinite singular and bare plural contexts. The experiment included fifty-four students divided into two experimental groups and one uninstructed control group. One experimental group received implicit input by using genre analysis of texts reinforced with generic noun phrases (NPs), and the other group received explicit grammatical ‘focus on form’ on generics. Two instruments were used: a forced choice task and a sentence repetition task conducted as pre-tests, post-tests and delayed post-tests. The results showed a significant increase in the total scores of both experimental groups, but a long-term effect was only found with the explicit group. The forced choice task showed significant improvement in the explicit group’s accuracy on generic indefinite singular and bare plural contexts and long-term improvement on the bare plural. The explicit group’s results on the repetition task show temporary improvement in the generic indefinite singular post-test. In general, the results suggest that explicit input is more effective than implicit input. Implications on acquisition difficulties and instruction are discussed.

The study reports a comparative investigation into the way Arabic first language (L1) and English native language scholars construct cohesive English texts in linguistics research articles through the use of linking adverbials (LAs). It was framed by Biber et al.'s (1999) classification of LAs. The corpus comprised 80 published research articles in a linguistics journal written in English by native and Arab scholars (304,144 words). Both qualitative and quantitative analyses have been conducted in order to investigate the semantic uses of LAs and their frequencies and percentages. There were overall similarities between the two datasets and slight differences that can be related to cross-cultural and L1 influence. Some Arab scholars had the tendency to overuse additive adverbials by comparison to other LAs. This tendency might be linked to their L1, such as Arabic which heavily uses additive adverbials. The findings revealed the non-native English speaking scholars' (NNES) slight preference for using formal (e.g. 'in order to') over less formal adverbials (e.g. 'so'). The distribution pattern of the categories was similar in both datasets. The study suggests investigating other genres of RAs written within different disciplines.