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Free download Vietnamese learners mastering english articles
Table of contents
Acknowledgements v
1 Introduction 1
2 English Articles:
A Problem for Vietnamese Learners? 7
Data collection 8
Data analysis and results 9
Discussion 18
Implications 20
3 The Meaning of Articles 23
Defining definiteness 24
Notions to define definiteness 25
Uniqueness and existentiality 25
Familiarity 29
Identifiability and locability 32
Inclusiveness 37
Specificity and referentiality 39
Definiteness in cognitive grammar 45
Concluding definiteness 48
Genericity 48
Generic a51
Generic the54
Generic zero57
Concluding genericity 62
Conclusion definiteness and genericity 63
4 Using articles 65
Types of articles 65
Classes of nouns 69
Usage contexts 75
Quirk et al’s classification 76
Langacker’s classification 80
Classification of the article environments 84
5 Article interlanguage in Vietnamese students
of English as a foreign language 91
Acquisition of the English articles by L2 learners 91
The determiners in Vietnamese 98
Một 101
Zero article and Null article 102
Những / Các 105
Cái 107
Demonstratives 108
An error analysis 113
Method 113
Hypotheses, Results and Discussion 117
Conclusion 132
6 Approaches to teaching the English article 135
Pedagogical suggestions on teaching English articles 136
Student textbooks and the English articles 142
Usage content and organization 143
Patterns of article usage presentation 144
Sequencing 145
Rule descriptions and presentation 145
English article usage: a cognitive grammar approach 149
General principles 150
Elements of the approach 159
7 Comparing cognitive grammar and traditional grammar
in the acquisition of the English article system in
Vietnamese students: some results 163
Method 164
Subjects 164
Materials 164
Design and procedures 169
Analyses 171
Results 173
Conclusion 177
8 Conclusion 179
Summary of the findings 179
Limitations 185
Implications and additional research 186
Appendices 189
Bibliography 279
Dutch summary 285
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d the English article system to any great degree, and thereseems to be very little systematicity to their interlanguage. In other words,
Chapter 6 136
the methods used so far have not proven to be very effective. Without
taking a position on the usefulness of focus on form or forms, we believe
that one problem in the current books is that they do not address the article
system in a manner that makes clear the meaning of the forms to the L2
learners whose language does not have a similar system.
In this chapter, we will first survey pedagogical studies, books
teachers may use, on teaching articles and some current grammar-cum-
practice books, books students use, and we will argue that they are not in
line with the theoretical findings presented in Chapter 3. At the end of this
chapter, we will present a description we feel would be more effective.
PEDAGOGICAL SUGGESTIONS ON TEACHING ENGLISH
ARTICLES
As Beaumont remarks (1994), it is not an easy task to set up a working basis
for teaching articles, but there has been agreement that formal instruction is
needed to achieve a positive effect in helping non-native students acquire
the English article system (Lindstromberg, 1986; Berry, 1991; Master,
1997). This is also reflected through the different attempts on proposing
different approaches of teaching the English articles on the grounds of
students’ errors and of objections to either a linguistic theory or problems
from approaches found in grammar books. In the following paragraphs we
will present a brief overview of these studies.
During the time the generative-transformational paradigm was
dominant in linguistic theory, Grannis (1972) was the first to object to using
this theory in explaining article use and propose a non-formal approach. One
of his main objections was related to the fact that the theory could not
account for differences in meaning between the following pairs of sentences
with a restrictive relative clause.
Chapter 6 137
1. a. I saw the man whom Albert told me about.
b. I saw a man whom Albert told me about.
2. a. I saw every man whom Albert told me about.
b. I saw that man whom Albert told me about.
He, therefore, advised teachers to ignore the dominant theoretical
framework and “fall back into a basically unstructured, traditional approach
to the description of English” (p.288).
Whitman (1974), also reacting to the inadequacy of the linguistic
theory at the time to explain meaning, proposes a pedagogical sequence on
the assumption that English article structure “is a sequence of quantification
and determination rather than a choice between specified and unspecified”
(p.253). He suggests six consecutive steps for teaching the English articles
based on ease of explanation and frequency of occurrence:
1. Quantity (singular/plural distinction)
This is a book vs. Those are three books.
2. Generic plural:
All apples are red > Apples are red.
3. Non-count nouns (count nouns vs. non-count nouns)
A lot of books vs. A lot of water
Many books vs. Much water
4. Determiners: (Which-NP question; second mention)
Which books are green? The books on the table.
I saw a book. The book was called “Moby Dick.”
5. Quantity and determiner:
One of the books on that table is blue.
6. Generic articles
A mouse is smaller than a rat.
The mouse is smaller than the rat.
Mice are smaller than rats.
Whitman introduces quantity first because “the concept of ‘counting’ is
easier to talk about than the concept of ‘known groups’” (p. 258). Then,
since the generic plural is closely related to the concept of quantity,
Whitman introduces the generic plural in step two and retains generic
Chapter 6 138
articles a/an and the until the last step because generics a and the are not
commonly found.
McEldowney (1977), without referring to a particular grammatical
theory, advocates the idea of simplifying the grammar of the English
articles. She based her study on the ‘common errors’ tradition of French
(1949) and her experience of training teachers of English as a foreign
language. In simplifying the grammar of the English article system, she
raises the importance of establishing one form for one function (i.e. code
marker). To her, three concepts that comport with the three markers are: (a)
choice marked by a in the sense of any; (b) specification coded through
special the; (c) and generalization through general –s and a and the. On the
basis of these three forms, she suggests a four-stage teaching approach,
which can be summarized into three main stages.
Stage 1: count nouns used in the sense of “any one” and “the special
one.”
Stage 2: uncountable nouns distinguished by “the substance in
general” and “the special substance” (e.g. mud vs. the black
mud).
Stage 3: generalizations conveyed through the three markers (i.e. a +
N; the + N; the + N + s).
Lindstromberg (1986) also suggests that teaching the rules of article
usage can make a difference to learners in helping them understand and use
the system. However, his approach is not to simplify the system as
suggested by McEldowney but to make the complex system manageable on
the basis of simplifying the terminology. Master (1991) (discussed below)
has incorporated some of these suggestions.
Berry (1991), after studying current approaches in some grammar-
cum-practice books, finds that they “are not yet well in the matter of
teaching articles.” Three main problems that he identifies are (1) incorrect or
Chapter 6 139
misleading formulation, (2) unwarranted emphasis on certain usage types,
and (3) lack of variety in formats. A typical misleading formulation is
second mention usage. Berry states that there are cases in which the is not
used after a is used for the first time (see Chapter 3). Cases of unwarranted
emphasis are generic usage, the used with proper nouns, and also second-
mention usage, which are uses that are not commonly found. The lack of
variety in formats has to do with the over-use of gap filling in exercises
designed to practice usage. According to Berry, a harmful effect of this type
of exercise is that it can reinforce learners’ beliefs about the redundancy of
the articles. For learners can wonder why they should fill in the articles
based on “the information in the rest of the text” when the information is
there already.
Based on these three objections, Berry proposes seven principles in
designing materials for teaching the articles, which can be summed up into
three main points: (1) use a principled descriptive account; (2) make
exercises / activities varied in terms of production, comprehension and
perception, and (3) apply some principles of presentation methodology (e.g.
simplicity, appropriateness). Berry uses Quirk et al. (1985), who
incorporates insights from Hawkins (1978), as a source of such a principled
descriptive account.
In line with Lindstromberg’s recommendation to simplify rules is
Master’s account. Master (1990) introduces a binary system in which article
use is reduced to a meaning contrast between “identification” (marked by
the) and “classification” (marked by a or ø). The binary system, in fact, is an
effort to manipulate various descriptions by simplifying them with attention
to the principle of one form for one function (McEldowney, 1977; Bolinger,
1977). Although he does not refer to the cognitive grammar framework, his
method is rather ‘cognitive’ in that he ignores “specificity” in definite and
Chapter 6 140
indefinite nouns (Table 1). In Cognitive Grammar, Langacker (1991, vol. 2:
104) argues that the notion of specificity may be useful in establishing a
discourse referent, but should be put aside “as a red herring” in explaining
English articles. Master’s schema (1990) is based on his original 6-point
schema (1988b) and is improved in that it focuses on helping students
identify (1) countability, (2) definiteness, (3) modification, (4) specificity
vs. genericity, (5) common noun vs. proper noun, and (6) idiomatic usage.
Master (1987, quoted in Master, 1997) tested his original approach and
found a significant improvement in test performance, but he wonders if the
improvement might have arisen from “the focusing of students’ attention on
the need for articles in English rather than from any explicit method for
choosing the article correctly” (1990: 465), which in our opinion might well
have been a direct effect after explicit teaching. In his study, Master did not
contrast his approach with another one, nor did he test for long-term effects.
Table 1. Master’s Summary of Aspects of Classification ...