| With numerous rules for use and even more exceptions to those rules, English articles have long been recognized as a challenging topic by both ESL learners and teachers. This research project set out to achieve three main objectives: (1) to identify how articles are currently explained by ESL textbooks and teachers, (2) to propose a systematic perspective through which to interpret article meaning, and (3) to examine how exposure to this new perspective influences the ways international MA TESOL students with article-less first languages (L1s) explain articles.;Toward the first objective, two ESL grammar books and one article workbook were reviewed for how they present articles to readers. Additionally, an experiment was carried out in which twelve ESL teachers wrote explanations for twenty examples of article use found in authentic texts. Confidence levels were also rated for each explanation. Patterns across teachers' explanations were identified, and results were discussed in terms of what they imply about the current practice of article instruction.;Toward the second objective, a conceptual framework was created. Through this framework, all uses of the map to the same abstract schematic image, all uses of a and unstressed some map to a second schematic image, and all uses of the zero article (O) map to a third schematic image. This framework was applied to a range of article uses as well as pedagogical mles for article use, and implications for linguistic theory and classroom practice were discussed.;Toward the final objective, five MA TESOL students with L1s of Korean, Thai, and Chinese were introduced to the framework through a series of training sessions. The participants' explanations of examples of article use in authentic texts before and after exposure to the framework were analyzed for changes. It was found that post-exposure explanations were more unified across individual article uses. Results were discussed in light of what they suggest about the potential use of the framework as pedagogical aid in the classroom. |
