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.

The is the commonest word in English. This word is also known as one of the most difficult grammatical items for Korean learners of English as a foreign language. This paper focuses on the non-generic use of the English definite article, and examines the grammatical descriptions of the article in Advanced English Grammar and English Grammar in Use. It reveals that some of the important usages of the definite article are not included in 'the grammar books', and observes, following Park and Song (2001), that these unlisted usages cause much difficulty for Korean learners to improve accuracy in the article use. Underscoring the organic view of language, the paper proposes that a comprehensive and systematic understanding of 'grammar' is prerequisite for optimum efficiency in teaching the English definite article to Korean EFL learners.