Use of articles in Malaysian secondary school English language textbooks

The English grammar articles are said to be the most difficult and the latest grammatical items to be acquired by the learners although articles are commonly used aspects of grammar in the English language. The problem with the article system is also faced by Malaysian English as Second Language (ES...

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Main Author:	Leong, Amelia Chiew Har
Format:	Thesis
Language:	English
Published:	2012
Subjects:	English language - Textbooks for foreign speakers English language - Study and teaching (Secondary) - Foreign speakers
Online Access:	http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/31928/1/FPP%202012%2028R.pdf
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id	my-upm-ir.31928
record_format	uketd_dc
spelling	my-upm-ir.319282015-01-29T05:31:40Z Use of articles in Malaysian secondary school English language textbooks 2012-02 Leong, Amelia Chiew Har The English grammar articles are said to be the most difficult and the latest grammatical items to be acquired by the learners although articles are commonly used aspects of grammar in the English language. The problem with the article system is also faced by Malaysian English as Second Language (ESL) learners. Although all the three articles should be taught throughout the five years in the secondary schools in Malaysia as outlined in the Malaysian Curriculum Specification for English Language, learners are found to be still committing errors in using the articles. Due to this, the present study aims to investigate the use of the articles in the Malaysian Form One to Form Five English Language textbooks as textbooks are the core material used in the classroom to aid the teaching and learning process. This thesis analyses the distribution patterns of the articles, the distribution patterns of the word classes that colligate with the articles and the way the articles are presented in the five Malaysian Secondary School English Language textbooks. For this purpose, content analysis is employed and WordSmith Tools 4.0 is used to analyze the articles in the Malaysian Form One to Form Five English Language textbooks. Through the analyses of wordlists, and concordance lines, the distribution patterns and the way of presentation of the articles were obtained. The findings indicated that the article the is the most frequently occurring among the three articles, followed by the article a and lastly the article an. This result is similar to the frequency ranking of the articles in the British National Corpus (BNC) and Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (LGSWE). The findings also displayed that out of the 15 colligation patterns of the articles, there is only one colligation pattern that did not occur in all the five Malaysian Form One to Form Five English Language textbooks which is the colligation pattern of the article a with the words spelled with a vowel but pronounced with a consonant sound. The study also revealed that in the sections presenting the articles in the textbooks, the explicit explanations and input on the article usages before the article exercises are insufficient. There is also a lack of variety in the exercises on articles; most of the exercises are in the form of cloze passages. Although there are many article usages, only certain usages of article are put into emphasis in the textbooks, others are neglected. This study also uncovered that although not all the colligation patterns occurred in the textbooks but all of the colligation patterns were indirectly illustrated in between the blanks in the articles exercises. Hence, the findings portrayed the strengths and weaknesses of our Malaysian Secondary School English Language textbooks in terms of the English grammar articles. The findings of this study will expectedly provide the teachers with the knowledge on the articles occurrences and the teaching of articles in the textbooks. They can help the teachers to prepare efficient lesson plans for teaching articles in the ESL classrooms. English language - Textbooks for foreign speakers English language - Study and teaching (Secondary) - Foreign speakers English language - Grammar - Problems, exercises, etc. 2012-02 Thesis http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/31928/ http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/31928/1/FPP%202012%2028R.pdf application/pdf en public masters Universiti Putra Malaysia English language - Textbooks for foreign speakers English language - Study and teaching (Secondary) - Foreign speakers English language - Grammar - Problems, exercises, etc. Faculty of Educational Studies
institution	Universiti Putra Malaysia
collection	PSAS Institutional Repository
language	English
topic	English language - Textbooks for foreign speakers English language - Study and teaching (Secondary) - Foreign speakers English language - Textbooks for foreign speakers
spellingShingle	English language - Textbooks for foreign speakers English language - Study and teaching (Secondary) - Foreign speakers English language - Textbooks for foreign speakers Leong, Amelia Chiew Har Use of articles in Malaysian secondary school English language textbooks
description	The English grammar articles are said to be the most difficult and the latest grammatical items to be acquired by the learners although articles are commonly used aspects of grammar in the English language. The problem with the article system is also faced by Malaysian English as Second Language (ESL) learners. Although all the three articles should be taught throughout the five years in the secondary schools in Malaysia as outlined in the Malaysian Curriculum Specification for English Language, learners are found to be still committing errors in using the articles. Due to this, the present study aims to investigate the use of the articles in the Malaysian Form One to Form Five English Language textbooks as textbooks are the core material used in the classroom to aid the teaching and learning process. This thesis analyses the distribution patterns of the articles, the distribution patterns of the word classes that colligate with the articles and the way the articles are presented in the five Malaysian Secondary School English Language textbooks. For this purpose, content analysis is employed and WordSmith Tools 4.0 is used to analyze the articles in the Malaysian Form One to Form Five English Language textbooks. Through the analyses of wordlists, and concordance lines, the distribution patterns and the way of presentation of the articles were obtained. The findings indicated that the article the is the most frequently occurring among the three articles, followed by the article a and lastly the article an. This result is similar to the frequency ranking of the articles in the British National Corpus (BNC) and Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (LGSWE). The findings also displayed that out of the 15 colligation patterns of the articles, there is only one colligation pattern that did not occur in all the five Malaysian Form One to Form Five English Language textbooks which is the colligation pattern of the article a with the words spelled with a vowel but pronounced with a consonant sound. The study also revealed that in the sections presenting the articles in the textbooks, the explicit explanations and input on the article usages before the article exercises are insufficient. There is also a lack of variety in the exercises on articles; most of the exercises are in the form of cloze passages. Although there are many article usages, only certain usages of article are put into emphasis in the textbooks, others are neglected. This study also uncovered that although not all the colligation patterns occurred in the textbooks but all of the colligation patterns were indirectly illustrated in between the blanks in the articles exercises. Hence, the findings portrayed the strengths and weaknesses of our Malaysian Secondary School English Language textbooks in terms of the English grammar articles. The findings of this study will expectedly provide the teachers with the knowledge on the articles occurrences and the teaching of articles in the textbooks. They can help the teachers to prepare efficient lesson plans for teaching articles in the ESL classrooms.
format	Thesis
qualification_level	Master's degree
author	Leong, Amelia Chiew Har
author_facet	Leong, Amelia Chiew Har
author_sort	Leong, Amelia Chiew Har
title	Use of articles in Malaysian secondary school English language textbooks
title_short	Use of articles in Malaysian secondary school English language textbooks
title_full	Use of articles in Malaysian secondary school English language textbooks
title_fullStr	Use of articles in Malaysian secondary school English language textbooks
title_full_unstemmed	Use of articles in Malaysian secondary school English language textbooks
title_sort	use of articles in malaysian secondary school english language textbooks
granting_institution	Universiti Putra Malaysia
granting_department	Faculty of Educational Studies
publishDate	2012
url	http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/31928/1/FPP%202012%2028R.pdf
_version_	1747811634399674368

Use of articles in Malaysian secondary school English language textbooks

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