The two concepts in the title of this discussion paper, experience and analysis, present in my view the common theme of the treatment studies in the DBP project (see Chapter 5). The central problems are: Which of these two concepts is more important for proficiency development? How should they manifest themselves? What is the most effective relationship between them? The DBP researchers discuss these issues and conclude:

The COLT studies (Allen, Fröhlich, and Spada 1987; Allen, Carroll, Burtis, and Gaudino 1987) deal directly with the relationship between analytic and experiential activities. The two immersion studies (Harley 1989b; Swain and Carroll 1987) also deal with this issue, but perhaps more indirectly. They seem to be based on the assumption that immersion is largely experiential anyway, and that it is now timely to pay more attention to vocabulary, grammar errors, and other aspects of the immersion student's proficiency development. The broader issues of content teaching and language teaching in immersion programs are discussed in more general terms in Harley (1989b) and Swain (1988). The immersion experimental study questions Krashen's theoretical position that we should avoid grammar teaching of any kind, and deliberately experiments with analytic materials which “are attuned as closely as possible to the primarily experiential focus of an immersion program” (Harley 1989b).