Learning to use the definite article in English

MollyB   Wed May 14, 2008 4:08 pm GMT
Learning to use the definite article in English is one of the things students find most difficult. Added to this, some students, yours truly included, come across articles/theses such as the one below and wonder if it is really possible for an ESL teacher to describe the usage of the article "the" in any satisfactory way in the context of the ESL classroom.

What do you think?

http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/Linguistics/Papers/2003/george_ben.pdf
Guest   Wed May 14, 2008 5:02 pm GMT
>>if it is really possible for an ESL teacher to describe the usage of the article "the" in any satisfactory way in the context of the ESL classroom.<<

No. You will have to study philosophy of language.