The English Article Errors Encountered by Arabic EFL Undergraduate Students in the Writing Skill

Abstract

The research aims at English articles errors encountered by Arabic students in the English language classroom in writing. The study was analyzed in use of English articles (definite & indefinite) in the participant’s writing skill. It also describes the types and sources of definite and indefinite article errors while writing. The Data were collected from 40 EFL students from College of Arts, King Saud University, and Riyadh. Who learn English language at least a minimum of 8 years .They were assigned to write different title of a short composition passage of approximately 100 words in one-and-a-half hours per week. Errors were identified during analysis of ‘Omission of Articles’, ‘Omission of indefinite Articles’ , ‘Wrong insertion of Articles’, and ‘Confusion of Articles’ .And the observation revealed frequency of removing both the indefinite articles and the definite article was higher than the occurrence of inserting and substituting one article with the other. This study also proofs that errors of using ‘a’ much common than errors of using ‘an’ and ‘the’ in writing the story.