One of my students told me they were confused about when to use articles or not, or what articles to use, and I didn't know how to answer easily, and when I looked it up, the answers were very confusing and used complicated English to explain the rules. So I made this handout that, I hope, explains the rules for article use in English in an easy to understand way. The Japanese may have a few mistakes in the notes portion, but I think it can be understood if there are.
I found this was a much more complicated topic than I thought it was (because, of course, I never think about it in my native language), so I hope this can help anyone who is struggling to explain the rules.
I also advised my student that learning rules for things like this is useful, but in general it is really hard to remember them when actually using the language. I said that in my opinion, listening practice is the best way to learn about things like articles, because only after you hear them used a lot can your brain start putting together the patterns of use and it will sound more natural to you when you use them in your speech.
But, if you have any super grammar-determined students like I do, this can hopefully be a good resource to give them.
(Also, I propose that 'articles' be added as a grammar tag on ALTopedia! They are so important, and, from what I have learned through my conversations with this student, super overlooked in EFL education!)
Very nice! This is needed. Maybe add why we will say "an apple" and not "a apple"?
Oh, and this made me think of plurals and singular as my JHS students still struggle with that.
This is definitely important, but I'm not convinced this explanation is easy to understand for students just because it's in Japanese. Maybe HS students can follow it. It definitely needs more attention, the problem is most teachers also don't properly understand how it works (including a lot of ALTs, as it's something we tend to do without thinking about why...)
I'd suggest trying to show examples with pictures/conversations to illustrate how "a ～" (new object) changes to "the ~" (object already known). But you're pretty much producing a textbook by that point...