Acquisition of articles by Sinhalese EFL/ESL learners

Abstract

Acquisition order of English articles by L2 learners has drawn much attention in second language acquisition (SLA) research since it is believed that most L2 learners of English face difficulties in acquiring English articles especially when an article system does not exist in learners' native language. Different acquisition orders have been identified in several empirical studies and this paper discusses the acquisition order of English articles by Sinhalese EFL/ESL learners based on the results of a study which investigated the acquisition order through accuracy, emergence and overuse/underuse of articles by analysing written language samples of 30 participants of 3 language proficiency levels. The results indicate an overall acquisition order of >the>a across proficiency levels and also indicate that both accuracy and emergence of the and a increased steadily; however, accuracy of and demonstrated a U shape behaviour.