On the Teachability of the English Article System and the Efficacy of Two Types of Article Instruction

• Main Authors: Hsiao-Yun Hsiao, 蕭曉韵
• Other Authors: Feng-Fu Tsao
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/57999084614848298739

碩士 === 國立清華大學 === 外國語文學系 === 94 === Abstract Research in the literature has clearly demonstrated that the English article system poses great challenge to non-native learners. The evidence came from studies exploring the sophistication and acquisition of the system as well as studies analyzing learner errors concerning article use. Drawing on the results derived from grammar instruction, some researchers suggest that conscious learning is efficient only when the rules are simple. In this sense, the article system, with its intrinsic complexity, is not teachable by focusing on forms. However, studies undertaken by Master (1994, 2002) yielded positive findings from systematic article instruction, which contradicted previous suggestions. Still, Master’s findings were not convincingly affirmative, because in the two experiments, only short-term effects were assessed. The current study, thus, aims at investigating the teachability of the English article system and the efficacy of two types of article instruction: traditional instruction vs. generalization-oriented instruction with an evaluation of longer-term effect. The experiment was administered to three intact groups of EFL senior high school students in Taiwan, whose native language was Chinese. One group received instruction based on a traditional grammar book. Another group received generalization-oriented instruction based on a new pedagogical grammar proposed by the researcher, focusing on the four crucial concepts underlying article choice. The third group received no instruction at all. All three groups took the identical article cloze test for three times as the pre-, post- and delayed posttests. The results showed that both of the instructed groups significantly improved on the posttest, but retention was found only in the group receiving generalization-oriented instruction. As for the uninstructed group, inconsistency of performances on the three tests was observed, indicating a probability of chance taking. The findings of the present study provide evidence in favor of systematic article instruction, which proves to be effective in raising students’ consciousness about article use. In addition, the excellence of the generalization-oriented group over the traditional group lends support to the claim made by Stutterheim and Klein (1987) that teaching concepts is more beneficial than directly focusing on forms when teaching certain aspects of grammar. Last but not least, the divergent results yielded from the two types of instruction may also provide a plausible explanation to the conflicting findings reported in earlier investigations into form-focused instruction. The current findings suggest that it is inappropriate to draw a conclusion about the effectiveness of form-focused instruction based on the specific types of instruction exploited in certain studies in the literature. A more reasonable question to be asked is: What type of form-focused instruction is effective? In other words, this thesis argues that it is the actual practice rather than the focus on forms that makes or does not make the difference.