This study investigates the use of the English definite article by Korean middle school students and examines the effects of explicit instruction on the article. Two hundred and seventy-two Korean middle school students were instructed on the core meaning of the definite article, identifiability, through a processing instruction method and were tested on their uses of the target form before and after instruction. The pretest results show that the various non-generic uses of the English definite article pose different levels of difficulty for Korean middle school learners of English. The comparison between the pretest and posttest results confirm the positive effect of teaching the core meaning of the definite article. All in all, the study shows that the non-generic use of the English definite article is teachable through the introduction of its core meaning in the EFL classroom. It provides substantial empirical evidence for the facilitative role of focus on form instruction in the acquisition of definite article in an EFL context.

I. Introduction
 II. Literature Review
  1. Analysis of the English Definite Article Use
  2. Acquisition of the English Definite Article The
  3. Article Pedagogy
 III. The Present Study
  1. Participants
  2. Target Form
  3. Procedures and Materials
   1) Pretest and Questionnaire
   2) Treatment
   3) Posttest
 IV. Results
  1. The Use of the English Definite Article by Korean Middle School Students
  2. Previous Explicit Knowledge of the Definite Article:Answers from the Questionnaire
  3. Effects of Instruction
   1) Overall Effects
   2) Effects of Instruction by Various Usage Types
 V. Discussion
 VI. Conclusion
 References

• Ji-Hyun Park(Seoul National University)