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The Effectiveness Of Teaching Articles To(-Art) Students In Writing Class Using Consciousness Raising Methods

Posted on:2004-01-23Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:Q ZhangFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360092987596Subject:Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
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The question of whether to teach English grammar to second language learners and how to teach it have plagued the field of language acquisition for two decades. Proponents of natural acquisition have clashed with those who believe grammar teaching can be effective if appropriate methods are utilized. This study found that second language learners do acquire grammar naturally, but it also discovered that grammar teaching grammar-teaching using consciousness raising techniques can significantly accelerate the learning of the targeted grammatical function.The aim of this study is to investigate whether teaching article system using consciousness raising techniques to (-Art) learners will result in the improvement of article usage. The subjects were 91 students enrolled in preparatory writing courses in Karachi University. Experimental group received the same training as control group except for their explicit instruction regarding article usage. The results of statistical analysis found that control group performed systematically better on cloze tests after a period of six weeks' teaching courses. More importantly, control group made fewer errors in article usage in their title-specified essay.The outcome of this study supports the theory that (-Art ) learners grasp the zero article first, then the definite article and finally the indefinite article (Parrish, 1987, Master 1997) . The ESL learners in this study improve their usage correctness of indefinite articles most substantially. The use of determiners that often substitute articles (e.g. demonstratives and quantifiers) tended to diminish as learners gain confidence in article usage. Also the learners appeared to have developed certain tactics for avoiding usage of definite and indefinite articles, which resulting in the significant increase of correct use of zero article.
Keywords/Search Tags:language acquisition, consciousness-raising, article usage, statistical analysis, Brender's Step System, Parrish's Type Matrix
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