Errors in Articles Made by Thai EFL University Students

It is difficult for Thai EFL students to learn English due to differences between English language and Thai language. Therefore, it has been found that Thai EFL students have problems in English skills, especially writing, and the main cause of problems is grammar. Although students have learned grammar for many years, this cannot help them understand how to use it accurately and appropriately.

It has been found that Thai EFL students in every level of education cannot use grammar in writing, and it is not surprising that Thai EFL university students still have problems in using grammar for writing. There are many types of errors in grammar that Thai EFL university students make, for example, articles, nouns, prepositions, etc. However, errors in articles are frequently found in Thai EFL university students’ writing. As I am a teacher who is teaching writing, I would like to share why Thai EFL university students always have errors in articles.

As previously mentioned, differences between Thai language and English language cause difficulties in learning English. In Thai language, we do not have articles, but in English language, we have to use articles for a singular noun. To specify, we have to use articles with countable nouns. The problem is that in Thai language we do not have countable and uncountable nouns, so when students write, they always ignore countable and uncountable nouns. Then they make a lot of errors in articles as they do not put a or an before a countable noun (a singular noun).

For example, one of my students wrote, “I like to eat apple”. There is an error in articles since this student did not put an article before a countable noun which is apple.

This is the main problem that Thai EFL university students must pay attention to. I would like to share my experience of how to solve this problem. Although they are in the higher education, they still have errors in articles. Although they know how to use articles, they do not use them when they write, so the solution is that they have to think before they write. It means that before they write, they must be able to identify whether a noun they write is a countable or uncountable noun. If a noun they write is a countable noun, they have to identify whether the noun is a singular or plural noun. If the noun is the singular noun, they have to use an article. On the contrary, if they write an uncountable noun, they do not need to use a or an.

In conclusion, they must think every time before they write. In fact, it is not difficult to learn how to use articles. Students, especially Thai EFL university students who have knowledge of grammar, should take this issue in account. If they understand this point, it will be easy for them to write every kind of tasks. They should not ignore the use of articles although this is a small point.