Contemporary Educational Researches Journal

Yazarlar: Sinem Ürkmez

Konular:-

Anahtar Kelimeler:Articles,Article use,Turkish EFL students.  

Özet: The English article system is one of the most complicated features of English grammar. This study is an attempt to investigate the Turkish students’ ability to use the English articles as an example for learners whose first language lacks an article system. The present study is based on a learner corpus. Uluda�? University English Language Teaching (ELT) Department students were the sample. The first year students of 1999-2000 Academic Year were required to write an essay in their Writing Skills Final Examination Paper. An article classification model was formed. The categories in this article classification model were based on Huebner’s semantic wheel. It was found that participants tend to use the definite article THE more frequently than any other articles. The results indicated that the participants mostly overgeneralized the Ø article, and it was followed by THE, then A/AN. It was argued that  the stated varieties in the article use and errors arise from the task applied for gathering the data, the participants first language, input frequency, and lack of sufficient information on articles in pedagogical materials. Finally it was recommended that more than one task should be applied for gathering data, and these tasks should be selected appropriately to make the participants use all categories of the articles. The information given on the articles should be designed by considering the learners whose L1 lacks an article system. More attention should be given to the teaching of the Ø article, and genericness, and learners should be encouraged to raise their own learning of the article system.    

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