ENGLISH DEFINITE ARTICLE "The"

For many English learners, articles are one of the most difficult things to remember! Even more confusing, it is not ALWAYS necessary to use an article in English.

The definite article the is the same for all genders in singular and in plural.
the boy, the girl, the cat, the computers. The definite article the is the most frequent word in English.

We use the definite article in front of a noun when we believe the reader knows exactly what we are referring to.

BECAUSE THERE IS ONLY ONE:

- The Pope is visiting Russia.


- The moon is very bright tonight.


- The Shah of Iran was deposed in 1979.

This is why we use the definite article with a superlative adjective:

- He is the tallest boy in the class.

- It is the oldest building in town.

We have listed some examples in the following table. There you can see when we use the definite article and when we don't.

We use the seasons of the year (spring, summer, autumn, winter) with or without the definite article.

in summer or in the summer

The American English word for autumn >fall< is always used with the definite article.

Sometimes we use the article and sometimes we do not. It often depends on the context. Watch the following example:

The student goes to school.


The mother goes to the school.

In the first sentence we do not use the definite article, in the second we do. The student goes to school for its primary purpose, so we do not use the article.

The mother might talk to a teacher, for example. She visits the school for a different reason. That's why we use the definite article in the second sentence.

Here there are some links for you to practice. We hope they are useful for you! 

ACTIVITIES!

1. Warm up: Taking into account your previous classes and knowledge, decide whether to use the definite article >the< or not.

http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/nouns_articles/article_the3.htm

2. INPUT: Now that you have read some theory about how to use the definite article "The" Click on the following link and read some other examples. After doing complete the chart. It's a fun an easy way to synthesize all the rules. In this link you'll find some subcategories, decide if you need to use the Definite article “The” or not.

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/determiners-and-quantifiers/definite-article

3.Individual Practice: Now that you have some information and that you have a better understanding on how to use correctly the definite article "The" It's your turn to show yourself how better you're doing on this topic. Click on the following link and decide whether to use the definite article >the< or not. If you do not need the article >the<, use x.

http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/nouns_articles/article_the.htm

4. Interactional Practice: There is nothing better than playing a fun game to put into practice the learning you have acquired during our unit. How good are you at basketball? Click on the next link and answer the questions about the use of the definite article and shoot the basketball to see how many baskets you can score!

http://www.eslgamesworld.com/members/games/grammar/basketball/Articles/Articles%20definite%20and%20indefinite.html

5. Assessment/feedback: Would you like to know how good you're doing through the practice you have done so far? Here you have three exercises to how much you have improved. Click on the following link, read the sentences and choose the correct form of the word. Then in order to get some feedback of your work, click on check and you'll get an score and some hints for you to improve your learning. Try it out! 

http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=71