An investigation of the article usage of Thai English as a foreign language students

This study investigated the types of errors that Thai English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students made in the use of articles in English and examined the possible sources that influenced these errors. The participants were 52 EFL students from 2 classes in Matthayomsuksa 6 at Phayuwittaya School, Sisaket, Thailand studying the Fundamental English course during the second semester of the 2014 academic year. They were low proficiency learners based on their O-net scores of less than 40 out of 100. The participants were required to complete a gap-filling test consisting of 35 blanks which involved basic usage of English articles.
The results of this study revealed that errors of addition of articles were found most frequently followed by substitution errors. Omission errors were found to be the least frequent type of error. The results also indicated that the participants incorrectly used the
definite article ‘the’ mostly, using it in inappropriate places when they did not know which article was correct. The results also showed that intra-lingual errors were more frequent (86.42%) than inter-lingual errors (13.58%). The study believed that it was not only the students’ first language that influenced their acquisition of the correct use of articles but also the complexity of the target language, lack of clear explanations, and their proficiency may have affected their acquisition.