Mental networks, procedural knowledge and foreign language teaching

In this paper I first wish to show what we are to understand by procedural knowledge, at a time when a growing number of researchers call for more process‐oriented language courses to replace the old factual knowledge‐oriented courses. I discuss why this term, which comes from the fields of cognitive psychology and information processing research, has gained such prominence in second‐language acquisition and foreign‐language‐teaching research, and how it relates to implicit and explicit knowledge and to language awareness. I present a neurobiologically based model of the mental processes which are involved in the acquisition and use of language knowledge. It aims to provide a theoretical framework for understanding the bewildering variety of definitions of procedural knowledge which we find in the literature. I distinguish between a procedural knowledge which is implicit in the structures of declarative knowledge and a procedural knowledge which is needed for their generation. This entails a dialectical understanding and awareness of language as process and product which presuppose and modify each other in a hermeneutical circle of knowledge and experience. In this context I discuss how pedagogical tasks and instruction can enhance procedural knowledge and language awareness.