Teaching English articles: Addressing university students’ misconceptions

This paper reports on a pilot study of Korean college EFL learners and their learning of definite and indefinite articles, and specifically, the difficulties that students perceive and realize after the unit. To better understand their perceptions and difficulties with articles at the college level, a brief unit on articles was taught to three first-year college English classes. The unit emphasized more relatable semantic categories and patterns, rather than a traditional rule-based or overtly grammatical approach to articles. A brief survey was then administered to the students. The results of the survey showed that students were aware of general difficulties discussed in the unit, and some came to realize gaps in their understanding and misconceptions they had about article patterns. Such misconceptions were due to the complexity of the article system, and to how they were previously taught. These results can help inform other EFL teachers in teaching articles to Korean students, and in understanding their specific difficulties and potential areas of confusion.