Korean Job Discussion Forums

[waggo]

Anybody know of any hints for teaching the definite and indefinite articles.
Any download lessons you could point me to?
Koreans dont seem to have these in their language and i find even the more advanced students are constantly missing them out of their spoken and written work.

Thanks in advance.

[Gord]

I just keep it simple and use an example like this:

"a" means any one item. "the" means one specific item.

"I want to buy a car. Should I buy the red car by the door?"

[some waygug-in]

Gord is right on with his idea of keeping it simple. Too often we pull out the grammar book which lists all the exceptions and ends up totally confusing a student.

A good exercise to illustrate the differece is to hold out a deck of cards.

Ask the student to pick "a card". (a = any card in the deck)

Then ask him/her what was "the card" they picked. (the = a specific card)

I hope this helps
Cheers

[shevek]

The deck of cards thing sounds good. I told my students a story about me seeing one of them at the supermarket and offering him a drink. When he accepted I asked him which drink. The milk, the cola or the soju. They all thought it was funny and then I made them write a lot of really easy sentences with a and the. Then we played a game to see if the boys or the girls could write more correct sentences with a and/or the. Now I remind them briefly almost every class just because they almost never used them before. They are definitely better now, but I don't know if they'll stop as soon as I stop reminding them or not.

[crazylemongirl]

I've actually being doing a big blitz on this with my younger students figuring that it's something they are best to pick up when they are younger.

I was so happy to here last week, there is an apple, there are three nuts from some of my 8 year olds I gave them candy.

CLG

[kimcheeking]

Statistically all learners of English acquire articles last or nearly last when learning English. I do believe it i important to teach it from high beginner though so that students will be exposed to the proper use of it.

That being said, do not worry if students make mistakes with that. Even post-advanced students occaisionally make that mistake. If you want to teach it I would recommend picking up a good grammar book - English Grammar in Use or Essential Grammar should do the trick as well as keepin you prepared for future grammar issues.

KK

[paul]

Another useful tip most students always remember is:

It's always "the ground" and "the sky." Nobody owns either of these.

So: the ball went up into the sky and landed on the ground. Most of the time it's also "the street or the road or the highway."

[7969]

get a decent grammar handbook either the one by martin parrott or raymond murphy. you can start by teaching the differences between a, and and the. when to use which one.... place names, specific objects, countable and uncountable nouns and so on. a decent grammar book will tell you more than you need to know.good luck

[Yangkho]

You've got it right with keeping it simple. The fact is, you should split up the teaching of articles into parts, because, let's face it, it's one of the hardest things about learners of English (even learners who are native speakers of a Romance language).

Someone else has already covered the first, and easiest aspect. "A card/the card". (There is something similar to this in Korean, where they use the nominative particle -ka/i the first time something is mentioned, and then they switch to -un/nun...so they can understand this.)

Next, you can give them other stuff, like the still simple a+job title (He is a doctor, a lawyer, etc.).

The+superlative (the best, the most, the worst, etc.)...they like seeing that there are some cases that have no exceptions.

Later comes the hard part, because now you're talking about basically memorizing oddities and exceptions, I mean, it's endless. This is just practice makes perfect, and like someone already said, they need to start young on this one.

And don't forget, you must not forget that it's necessary, if you're teaching when to use a and when to use the, that you consider when NOT to use an article (for example, when describing things in general: "trees, human beings, cheese is good...)

Headway has an excellent exercise, which is a paragraph that gives examples of all the rules (and of course, we're EFL teachers, so we must (and can) teach grammar by showing, not by explaining). In this paragraph, a man describes where he lives and gives details about his father's job. It's quite a neat little exercise, that tricks you into learning.

If you don't have this book, the paragraph goes something like this:

My name is Bob. I live in A village near A river. THE village is called Newville. There is A post office and A church. My father, Harold works at THE postoffice. He is A postman. Every once in A while, well, about once A month, he goes to London to visit his friends. They have lunch at THE Hotel Grand Bill on THE River Thames. I should know. I'm A teacher and I work at THE school across THE street.

Now, right three headings on the board: A, THE, NO. Have students start with A, at the beginning of the paragraph. They find every example of A. As you write the example under the heading, you can ask why, or what's the rule. Help them out with the first one. "A village...first time, I don't know this village, so it's A." "A postman...it's his job, so you use A." "A month/a while...it tells you how often." Then, you go through all the examples with THE. The kids will automatically click with the A/THE first time-second time thing. More examples: "THE village is called...I know the village we're talking about now." "THE Hotel/THE river Thames...some names of famous places have THE." "across THE street...we know there's only one street between the hotel and the school."

Repeat this process under the category NO, finding all nouns that don't include an article.

This paragraph can easily be adjusted for a lower level class, like if you wanted to focus on one or two things.

I used this exercise and saw good results and I hope you do, too.