The present study aimed to examine the relationship between children's metacognition and their later second language acquisition in implicit and explicit learning conditions, as well as the effects of time and condition on children's metacognition and second language acquisition. Seventy Chinese children (>M >= 8.13; sd = 3.34) were followed from Year 2 to Year 3 at primary school. Children in Group 1 were in the Explicit Learning Condition, while children in Group 2 were in the Implicit and Explicit Learning Condition. A range of tasks were used to assess children's metacognition and second language acquisition. Children's implicit metacognitive skills and explicit metacognitive knowledge had significant predictive roles in their later second language acquisition. Children in Group 2 had higher levels of improvement in later implicit and explicit metacognition as well as in implicit and explicit second language acquisition than their counterparts in Group 1.
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