Chinese EFL learners’ misconceptions of noun countability and article use

Liu, Yingying; Lu, Xiaofei

doi:10.1016/j.system.2020.102222

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Till now, a few studies have been dedicated to this area of investigation, focusing on such language-specific learnability issues among Chinese EFL learners as the effects of linguistic and demographic factors on adult L2 article use in speech situations (Leroux & Kendall, 2018), explicit knowledge of English article system in the appropriate selection of articles (Chan, 2016(Chan, , 2017, perceptions of noun countability that would influence Chinese learners' accurate use of articles (Liu & Lu, 2020), as well as universal language factors that govern the variations of article omission and overuse in academic settings (Tai, 2020). Though these studies have contributed to a line of research on Chinese learners' article production, what has been long missing in the literature is a panorama of article usage among Chinese EFL learners.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variability in Article Use Among Chinese EFL Learners: Effects of Semantic Contexts, Proficiency and Discourse-Mode

Qian

Kang-xi

Yan

2021

J Psycholinguist Res

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The aim of this study is to shed light on the learnability regarding usages of three English articles (a, the and zero) among Chinese EFL learners. To this end, three tasks were administered in a pool of 107 participants to examine the extent to which learners can accurately use articles across different semantic contexts as well as the effects of varying proficiency level and discourse mode on learners' article decisions. The results showed that both groups (Group Low and Medium) in this study were likely to commit few errors with respect to article usages that target definiteness and specificity than those in zero-licensing contexts. In addition, inconsistent findings were observed regarding the effect of proficiency level on the variability in learners' article choices. Though significant differences were observed between two discourse modes (exposition and argumentation), it is claimed that NP-licensing contexts rather than shift of discourse mode play a major role in explaining the variances in the accurate use of articles. Furthermore, the findings in the present study will also inspire pedagogical implications.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variability in Article Use Among Chinese EFL Learners: Effects of Semantic Contexts, Proficiency and Discourse-Mode

Qian

Kang-xi

Yan

2021

J Psycholinguist Res

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“…Much of the recent L2 research on articles has been primarily descriptive in nature, focusing on aspects such as the order of acquisition (e.g., Chung, 2009;Lee, 2013;Liu & Gleason, 2002;Sun, 2016), the role of L1 (e.g., Crosthwaite, 2016;Ionin et al, 2008;Ionin & Montrul, 2010), learners' knowledge of and perceptions toward articles (e.g., Butler, 2002;Chan, 2016), and existing L2 pedagogy of articles (e.g., Lopez & Sabir, 2019;Yoo, 2009). Specific characteristics that commonly cause difficulty for L2 learners have also been examined, such as noun countability (e.g., Amuzie & Spinner, 2013;Liu & Lu, 2020;Tsang, 2017). While far from exhaustive, these studies collectively indicate the enormous effort exerted toward understanding articles from the L2 acquisition perspective.…”

Section: Research On L2 Acquisition Of English Articlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of various combinations of form-focused instruction techniques on the acquisition of English articles by second language learners of English

Lloyd,

Lee

2023

Language Teaching Research

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The current study investigated the extent to which second language (L2) learners of English benefitted from various combinations of form-focused instruction (FFI) techniques on the acquisition of English articles. Forty-six participants were randomly assigned to four conditions: input enhancement only ( n = 12); input enhancement and metalinguistic explanations ( n = 11); input enhancement, metalinguistic explanations, and practice ( n = 11); and a control condition ( n = 12). They each received six hours of online instruction on English articles according to their condition. The participants’ knowledge of articles was measured by four tasks (i.e. grammaticality judgment task, metalinguistic knowledge task, elicited imitation task, and picture-description task) in a pretest, an immediate posttest, and a delayed posttest. Results showed that the group receiving input enhancement and metalinguistic explanations exhibited clear and durable gains in the metalinguistic knowledge task. Furthermore, a subset of participants who benefitted the most from the instructional treatment revealed two common factors: a first language (L1) without an article system and a high rate of engagement during the online instruction. The findings suggest that metalinguistic explanations clearly contribute to explicit knowledge of articles and that learners’ L1 backgrounds may affect the extent to which FFI on English articles benefits them. The present study contributes meaningfully to the current understanding of the effects of FFI as well as the L2 acquisition of English articles.

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Profiling a microeconomics noun collocation list: A corpus-based approach

Ang

2023

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies

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Chinese EFL learners’ misconceptions of noun countability and article use

Cited by 3 publications

References 11 publications

Variability in Article Use Among Chinese EFL Learners: Effects of Semantic Contexts, Proficiency and Discourse-Mode

Variability in Article Use Among Chinese EFL Learners: Effects of Semantic Contexts, Proficiency and Discourse-Mode

The effects of various combinations of form-focused instruction techniques on the acquisition of English articles by second language learners of English

Profiling a microeconomics noun collocation list: A corpus-based approach

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