Acquisition Of English Articles Research Articles

The Role of L1 and Age Effect in the Acquisition of EnglishArticles among Croatian Young EFL Learners

The category of definiteness/indefiniteness is often seen as a linguistic universal (Chomsky 2000; Silić 2000) that exists in every human language but is expressed with different linguistic means and patterns in different languages. In English, this category is grammaticalized primarily via articles (Zergollern-Miletić 2008). The Croatian language does not contain an article system, and acquiring English articles represents a major problem for most learners of English as a foreign language (Balenović and Medved Krajnović 2013; Zergollern-Miletić 2015). The present paper investigates difficulties in acquiring English articles among young learners in Croatia in written tasks. Pupils involved in the research started learning English in the first grade of primary school. A total of 76 primary school learners from six different classes (schools) and different age groups were included in this research. The initial hypothesis is that the correct use of articles increases as learners’ overall L2 proficiency increases due to exposure to instructed EFL learning. A qualitative analysis was carried out using error analysis, i.e., proper/wrong use, or omission of the article. The findings partially confirmed the initial hypothesis and showed that our participants were becoming aware of the existence of English articles (they comprehended that articles should precede nouns), but we found very frequent article omission, which, according to our research results, indicates that the process of developing and understanding the semantic and pragmatic role of English articles is long and fluctuating specifically with learners whose L1 lacks the article system.

Recast frequency and the acquisition of English articles in a computer-mediated context

This study examines the role of recast frequency and its effectiveness in the acquisition of English articles in a computer-mediated context. Sixty-one pre-intermediate university language learners in Turkey were randomly divided into four main groups: high frequency recast (HF), low frequency recast (LF), test control, and task control groups. The learners in the HF and LF recast groups completed five and two tasks, respectively, in a video-conferencing environment and received oral recasts on their incorrect use of English articles. Learners in the test control group only took the pre and posttests, and learners in the task control group completed five tasks without receiving feedback on the target structure. The outcome was measured through online picture description and error correction tasks. Findings showed that in the picture description task, learners in the HF group performed significantly better than those in the LF recast group and the control groups. In the error correction task, the results revealed a short-term advantage for learners in the HF group, which faded away in the delayed posttest. Significant correlations were also found between the recast frequency and learners’ score improvement in the immediate and delayed picture description tasks but not in the error correction tasks. These results suggest that recast quantity may play an important role in improving learners’ accuracy of their oral production.

The Acquisition of English Articles by Chinese EFL College Students

The Acquisition of English Articles by Chinese EFL College Students

The effects of various combinations of form-focused instruction techniques on the acquisition of English articles by second language learners of English

The current study investigated the extent to which second language (L2) learners of English benefitted from various combinations of form-focused instruction (FFI) techniques on the acquisition of English articles. Forty-six participants were randomly assigned to four conditions: input enhancement only ( n = 12); input enhancement and metalinguistic explanations ( n = 11); input enhancement, metalinguistic explanations, and practice ( n = 11); and a control condition ( n = 12). They each received six hours of online instruction on English articles according to their condition. The participants’ knowledge of articles was measured by four tasks (i.e. grammaticality judgment task, metalinguistic knowledge task, elicited imitation task, and picture-description task) in a pretest, an immediate posttest, and a delayed posttest. Results showed that the group receiving input enhancement and metalinguistic explanations exhibited clear and durable gains in the metalinguistic knowledge task. Furthermore, a subset of participants who benefitted the most from the instructional treatment revealed two common factors: a first language (L1) without an article system and a high rate of engagement during the online instruction. The findings suggest that metalinguistic explanations clearly contribute to explicit knowledge of articles and that learners’ L1 backgrounds may affect the extent to which FFI on English articles benefits them. The present study contributes meaningfully to the current understanding of the effects of FFI as well as the L2 acquisition of English articles.

Nunation and the L2 acquisition of English indefinite articles by L1 Najdi and Hijazi speakers

Whether nunation is a marker of indefiniteness is a controversial issue in the literature of Arabic grammar. To date, no study has investigated whether the use of nunation in a speaker’s L1 can affect their second language (L2) acquisition of English articles. This paper reports the results of a study on the use of English articles by speakers of two Saudi dialects, Najdi and Hijazi, of which only the former – Najdi – grammaticalises nunation. The study recruited 56 participants (24 Najdi speakers, 24 Hijazi speakers and 8 native speakers of English). The experimental groups were third-year secondary school students whose English was at the elementary level, according to the Oxford Quick Placement test. The participants completed a 48-item multiple-choice test that examined their use of the English indefinite articles a and ø. It was found that a) the participants used ø more accurately than a; b) Najdi speakers were more accurate in using a than ø due to the presence of nunation in Najdi; and c) because Hijazi does not use nunation, Hijazi speakers were more sensitive than Najdi speakers to the semantic properties of nouns modified by articles.

A Study on the EFL Korean Learners’ Acquisition of English Articles: Focusing on UG

A Study on the EFL Korean Learners’ Acquisition of English Articles: Focusing on UG

The Acquisition of English Articles by Chinese Learners

English articles pose a lot of problems even after years of L2 English exposure and learning. The question is why it is so difficult to acquire these elements when a learner does not have them in their native language. This question points to a deeper reason that involves looking into the structure of L1 and L2 and understanding their differences. In this paper, we focus on Chinese learners of English, where Chinese is a language without articles. In order to find out more about the differences in the structure of the grammar between the elementary and advanced learners, we conducted a simple empirical study using a close test. The results show that there are differences between article use among elementary and advanced learners, and that advanced learners were more target-like in their article use than the elementary learners.

The acquisition of English articles among L1 Dagbani L2 English learners

AbstractThis study investigates the acquisition of articles in L2 English by L1 speakers of Dagbani, a Gur language spoken in Ghana. Dagbani differs from English in that it has two definite articles, no indefinite article, and a zero-article which may express definiteness, indefiniteness as well as genericity. The study consisted of a Forced-choice task (FCT) and an Acceptability judgement task (AJT) which were administered to Dagbani teenagers with an intermediate proficiency in English (n = 45) and a group of native English speakers as controls (n = 8). The results showed that the learners’ article choice was based on definiteness, not specificity (i.e., no fluctuation between the two) and that they had slightly more problems with indefinite than definite contexts, while generic contexts were the most problematic. Except for a certain task effect as well as a possible interference of instruction (in the FCT), the results can be argued to generally be due to influence from the L1 and to the difficulty of feature reassembly.

Acquisition of Definiteness And Indefiniteness by Behdini Kurdish Learners of English

The acquisition of English grammatical articles by non-native speakers of English language has been the main concern of a wide range of research, especially in languages whose grammatical article system functions differently from the English grammatical article system. Behdini is a variety whose grammatical article system is different from that English grammatical parameter. Thus, the acquisition of L2 English articles among L1 Behdini speakers is investigated in this study along proposals based on the Interpretability Hypothesis (Hawkins & Hattori, 2006; Tsimpli & Dimitrakopoulou, 2007; Hawkins & Casillas, 2008), and the Full Transfer Full Access (FT/FA) hypothesis (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1994, 1996). The researcher developed a Judgement Elicitation Task (JET)   based on the following research question: Will Behdini learners’ English language proficiency level play a role in participants’ judgements? Will these learners be able to acquire English definite, indefinite, and zero articles systematically? In other words, is any development expected in Behdini learners’ acquisition of English articles? 40 Behdini L2 English learners took part in the Judgement Elicitation Task . English learners took an English language proficiency test based on which they were roughly grouped into three sub-groups: elementary (11 participants), intermediate (22 participants), and advanced (7 participants). All participants took two tests: an acceptability judgment test including 46  items (34 pure test items + 12 filler gaps) and a proficiency test with 40  items. The results of the study show that there is a transfer from L1 into the L2ers’ English interlanguage due to the finding that most participants, disregarding their proficiency level, failed to reject the ungrammatical sentences in almost all the categories. The study finds support for the FT/FA proposal, where first language transfer, second language input and access to universal grammar features are argued to have impacts on Learners of English article acquisition among L1 Behdini learners. The result  also show that learners of  English  fluctuate in their choice of articles, which is interpreted by the predictions made by the Fluctuation Theory. Uninterpretable features also, proved to be difficult to acquire by Behdini learners, a point that  can be interpreted the base form of the Interpretability Hypothesis.&nbsp

Difficulties in The Acquisition and Use of English Articles among Adult Pashto Learners

The acquisition of the English articles is one of the most difficult areas for the second language learners particularly when there are no articles in the first language of the learners. The purpose of this study is to investigate the difficulties in acquisition and use of the English articles. The study aims at identifying the errors the EFL learners make in using the English articles. Two theoretical approaches regarding noun classification for articles choice were adopted in this study. The data were collected in the form of a gap-fill task from seventy five (75) adult Pashto learners of English. The results showed the students used the definite article ‘the’ and the indefinite article ‘a/an’ more often than the zero article Ø. In noun types, a few subjects made errors in using articles before count nouns. In the noun phrase environments, the lowest error rate was in referential indefinite while the highest error rate was in generics. The reasons for difficulties in acquiring and using the English articles were found to be mainly the identification of noun types, NPs environments, and language transfer.

Interaction between two determiner systems: The acquisition of English articles by a Hebrew-speaking child

This longitudinal case study followed a Hebrew-speaking child acquiring L2-English, focusing on her production of articles. Although the child had already developed significant aspects of the Hebrew determiner system, her acquisition of English followed a typical developmental route for first language acquisition: single words; telegraphic speech; and complete sentences, including articles. The child’s acquisition of definite and indefinite English articles was based on different strategies: the was dropped for a long period, but was then incorporated in full sentences; whereas a, which lacks an equivalent form in Hebrew, appeared earlier in the child’s utterances, but only in memorized templates of [ a + Noun]. Moreover, the proportion of cases in which English articles were omitted in obligatory contexts decreased over time, whereas additions and substitutions increased. These findings bear upon the role of functional categories in language acquisition and the endeavor to understand the extent to which children’s L1-based knowledge may guide or interfere with their mastery of a second language.

The Effect of Written Corrective Feedback and Learner Differences on Korean Learners’ Acquisition of English Articles

The Effect of Written Corrective Feedback and Learner Differences on Korean Learners’ Acquisition of English Articles

The Role of Semantic Features on the L2 Acquisition of English Articles

The Role of Semantic Features on the L2 Acquisition of English Articles

Effects of Two Types of Indirect Written Corrective Feedback on the Acquisition of English Articles

The study investigates the relative effects of two types of indirect written corrective feedback (CF) on the acquisition of English articles. Thirty-five high intermediate Korean EFL college students who were enrolled in three composition classes participated in this study. After the instruction on the English article usage, three classes (Class A, Class B, and Class C) received different types of feedback on their blog writings over the course of a semester. Both Class A and Class B received indirect feedback in the form of underlining errors. In the following class, Class A received correct forms with metalinguistic information for the errors revised incorrectly, but Class B did not have such opportunities. The Class C received no feedback. The results showed that only Class A, which received indirect feedback plus correct forms with metalinguistic information, made a statistically significant gain from the 3 sessions of feedback treatment. Pedagogical implications were provided on the basis of the findings.

Rethinking the role of universal semantic features in the L2 acquisition of English articles: a critique of Ionin, Ko & Wexler (2008)

Rethinking the role of universal semantic features in the L2 acquisition of English articles: a critique of Ionin, Ko & Wexler (2008)

The Acquisition of English Articles by Arabic L2-English learners: A Semantic Approach

The Acquisition of English Articles by Arabic L2-English learners: A Semantic Approach

A Study on Chinese Students’ Acquisition of English Articles and Interlanguage Syntactic Impairment

AbstractThis study investigated the resetting process of the articles’ parameters by Chinese English learners with a Forced Choice Elicitation Task on the basis of the Article Choice Parameter and Fluctuation Hypothesis proposed by

The Acquisition of English Articles by Second Language Learners

Despite the numerous studies on English article acquisition, the acquisition sequence, differences, and difficulties by English-as-a-second language learners (ELLs) remain to be further explored. With a detailed literature review, this study investigated the acquisition sequence, differences, and difficulties of English articles by ELLs with diverse first language backgrounds. Eighteen college ELLs participated in the study. Data were collected through cloze exercises. The results, through the analysis of its database of 6,178 article used, indicated that “zero article” was the last to be acquired while article “a” is the first to be acquired; positive correspondence existed between the growth of the acquisition of article “a/an,” “the,” and “zero” between “+Art” (with article system) group and “−Art” (without article system) group. The results also revealed that (a) the most difficult article for participants in both groups to acquire was “zero article,” (b) “the” was the most difficult article for participants in “+Art” group, and (c) “a” was the easiest one acquired by both groups. These findings, in fact, challenge the commonsense belief that “+Art” ELLs acquired English articles faster than “−Art” ELLs and that when two languages were similar, positive transfer would occur.

Transfer and semantic universals in the L2 acquisition of the English article system by child L2 learners

ABSTRACTL2 learners’ problems with English articles have been linked to learners’ L1 and their access to universal semantic features (e.g., definiteness and specificity). Studies suggest that L2 adults rely on their L1 knowledge, while child L2 learners rely more on their access to semantic universals. The present study investigates whether child L2 learners access features like adult L2 learners (i.e., reassembling the features of the L1) or as L1 acquirers (i.e., choosing from the inventory of universal features). We evaluated the acquisition of English articles in 30 Spanish-speaking children learning English as their L2 and found that they transfer knowledge from their L1 much in the same way as do adults. However, the error analysis also suggests that article acquisition in child L2 learners is restricted by Universal Grammar resembling L1 acquisition. In conclusion, we propose that article acquisition in child L2 learners patterns with both adult L2 and L1 acquisition.

Acquisition of English Articles by Croatian Primary School Students in Early English Foreign Language Learning

This paper deals with an analysis of transcribed recordings of spontaneous classroom interaction in five classes of primary school students in early EFL learning in Croatia. The study was conducted within the framework of a large research project supported by the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sports. The students involved in this study started learning English at the very beginning of their education. The recordings were made during three consecutive years when the students were at the end of grades one, two and three. Although the students’ overall language development showed clear progress, the development of the correct use of definite and indefinite articles remained highly variable. Progress was made in the sense that throughout the years the use of both types of article increased, but incorrect usage was still very frequent. The study shows a clear interdependence between lexis and grammar at the very beginning of English foreign language learning.