Using lexical bundles to teach articles to L2 English learners of different proficiencies

Abstract The purpose of the study is to examine the potential for teaching articles using lexical bundles with adult English language learners of varying proficiency levels. Participants were low-intermediate and high-intermediate English as a second language students (n = 107). Using a pretest/posttest/delayed posttest design, the learners were assigned to either the experimental group or the control group. The experimental treatment involved a consciousness-raising activity with explicit instruction that used core expressions extracted from target lexical bundles (e.g., number of is the core expression of bundles like in a number of, the total number of) and focused on the core expressions' adjoining articles in context. The data were collected over three weeks through pre/posttests in which participants wrote sentences using the core expressions. The results showed both low- and high-proficiency treatment groups showed significant improvement on the posttests. The findings also showed that all learners’ most frequent error was omission of articles where they are required within bundles. Omission errors as proportion of total errors decreased over the course of the study for both treatment groups. The results suggest that bundles, as article-including expressions that function as wholes in discourse, can be an effective tool to teach article uses in context.