The importance of teaching articles is obvious. It is necessary for teachers to be better informed how present and practice grammar and articles.

There exist different ways of presenting articles. At the beginning pupils must realize when should we use an indefinite article and when should we use a definite article? That's why they have to remember the first rule:

Indefinite article is used for previously unknown nouns that are being introduced into a dialogue or story and definite article is used for nouns that have already been introduced (or are already known).

For example:

I saw a cat. The cat was sitting on a fence. The fence was painted brown. The cat jumped off the fence when it saw a mouse. The mouse ran into a hole when it saw the cat so the cat didn't catch the mouse.

In this example, the nouns `cat', `fence', and `mouse' take an indefinite article, but only when they are introduced for the first time. After they are introduced, we use the definite article in every instance. This pattern, or rule, covers a lot of basic instances of concrete nouns, especially in story telling. This rule can extend over long periods of time and interrupted dialogue so that I can ask you to buy a pen and then several hours later I can ask you if you bought the pen.

Of course, this rule cannot be taught at the single sentence level since it requires a sentence to introduce the noun and a sentence to talk about the noun that has previously been introduced.

One exercise that I find useful is to have students fill in the articles for simple stories where several characters and objects are introduced into the story in succession. Every time a new character (knight, cat, ogre, mouse) or a new object (fence, bridge, castle) is introduced into the story the indefinite article is used and thereafter the definite article is used as per the basic rule.

Another good exercise that emphasizes this use of the basic rule is to have a series of flashcards with people or animals doing something and ask the students to describe what they see:

I see a monkey. The monkey is playing the drums.

I see a cat. The cat is swimming.

The pattern can be varied to suit other language needs:

There is a cat. The cat is swimming.

Some other possible ideas for using flashcards like these are:

(a) Describing colours: I see a cat. The cat is black.

(b) Describing clothes: There is a girl and a boy. The girl is wearing a dress and the boy is wearing a shirt and jeans.

(c) Describing actions: I see a knight. The knight is fighting an ogre.

(d) Describing settings of a story: Once upon a time, there was a princess. The princess lived in a castle.

If the teacher has to teach the use of articles, then this is the place to begin. This is the basic rule for using articles. In fact, I often tell pupils that this is the only rule, but there are many exceptions. The problem is that there are so many exceptions that you could spend an inordinate amount of time going over these exceptions. In the end, pupils would not be able to internalize these rules anyways.

Another important rule is when something is unique or, in other words, there is only one of that objects. In this case, the definite article is used. The sun, the president, the queen of England, the capital city, and the moon are all examples. This is especially true for objects that are well-known by many or most people, but it is true even when the hearer may not know the object:

A: Who's he?

B: He's the president of Korea. She's the CFO. He's the mayor.

This can be contrasted with:

A: Who's she?

B: She's a member of parliament. She's an accountant. He's an alderman.

This uniqueness can come by association:

A car crashed into a tree. The driver was seriously injured.

Once we established (introduced) the car, there could only be one driver so “driver” was unique at the time of introduction and we use the driver instead of a driver. We could have rewritten this so that driver was not unique (and the car was) when it was introduced:

A driver was seriously injured when the car he was driving crashed.

A driver can only be driving one car at a time so `car' is unique in this instance once driver was introduced.

This exception applies to superlatives (which are usually unique in occupying the extreme position or quality): the best place, the worst thing, the fastest runner, the tallest mountain, the most. This can be contrasted with comparatives such as a better mouse trap where several better mouse traps are possible.

This exception also applies to ordering (ordinal numbers used as adjectives) where it is presumed that the ordering is unique: the second time, the third example, the fourth person to call. In other words, once you place an order on objects they hold a unique position in that order.

This exception applies to named things (which through naming become unique):

The Rocky Mountains. (a mountain range)

The New York Islanders. (a sports team)

The Amazon River. (a river in South America)

The Pacific Ocean (An ocean)

The Steelworkers Union (an organization)

The Great Plains (a geographic locality)

The Washington Monument (a statue)

The Number Four Bus

However, this application is imperfect as some things such as named lakes and islands take no articles (Buttle Lake, Skull Island) except in plural instances (the Great Lakes, the Galapagos islands).

This exception applies to famous people who become unique in their fame:

A: I saw Nicole Kidman yesterday.

B: Nicole Kidman, the actor? (There is only one famous Nicole Kidman)

Another way of presenting articles is by giving the rules of using them in the mother tongue. Then the pupils practice applying the rule first orally and after that in written form.

Written texts are often one of the major sources through which language learners meet new vocabulary, grammar and articles in particular, so it is only logical that they should be used extensively in classroom teaching. They have the great advantage.

As the example the teacher may use different texts. Such as:

“There is no city quite like New York. It is known as “The City That Never Sleeps” and is the biggest commercial and cultural center in the world. Manhattan - the heart of the city - is only one of the five boroughs in this city. There are thousands of things to do and places to visit for tourists. The most famous landmark must be The Statue of Liberty - a symbol of freedom.

You can relax in Central Park, which is larger than Monaco! New York really does have something for everyone. ”[11:76]

2.2 Memory techniques.

The learners are said to forget about 50 per cent of the information received after the presentation. That is why there are some special techniques which help the teacher to promote more effective learning. In the process of teaching articles I use different tables, schemes which can help students to remember this theme better. I suggest using the following exercises:

a) a phrase scheme

to school the cinema

to go to bed to go to the theatre

home the hospital

The teacher asks the pupils to learn these examples by heart. This will help to understand the difference between using definite and zero articles.

b) a phrase fork

bus

to travel by car

boat

c) a tree diagram

to be

at in

school home … bed hospital …

The dotted lines mean that the learners can add more words to the tree as they meet them.

2.3 Further activities for practicing article.

After explaining the main rules of using articles and showing the examples it is easy for pupils to understand the correct use definite and indefinite articles. First of all, it is suggested that the teacher should use dialogues for discussion with different articles (see Appendix 2). The pupils must learn the rules and discuss speakers' use of articles.

After that pupils can easily cope with different exercises. The following exercises are presented in an order of increasing difficulty. In the first exercises the pupils complete a sentence by choosing the correct articles from the suggested.

Add the or no article. This exercise helps the teacher to check students' use of articles and their understanding of countable and uncountable nouns.

Please pass me … butter.

… butter is a dairy product.

John, where's … milk? It is in … refrigerator or on … table?

… milk come from cows and goats.

Do you like … weather in this city?

… air is free.

… air is humid today.

Later they may be asked to complete sentences without any cues. They pick from the sentence patterns and the vocabulary they have studied the forms that best complete the sentence.

What are these things? Try and find out if you don't know.

a cauliflower? It's …………….

a pigeon? It …………………...

a skyscraper? ………………….

Earth? Mars? Venus? Jupiter? They ………………

the Rhine? the Nile? the Mississippi?......................

Give answers to the questions.

A friend of yours is in hospital. Where would you go to visit him? ………….

A friend of yours is in prison. Where would you go to visit him? ………….

A friend of yours is at church. If you wanted to meet him immediately after the service, where would you go?.....................................................

It is understood, of course, that the pupil is not expected to rack his brains for something to say even in the simplest of exercises. Suggestions for answers should be implicit in the context or when necessary should be made overly by the teacher.

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