Abstract
The role of English grammar was examined in teaching the appropriate use of definite and indefinite articles to international students. The students took a pre-test, received computerized training, and then took a post-test, in which they were asked to choose either "a(n), " "the, " or nothing to complete sentences. Generally, the students provided with grammatical rules reached a mastery criterion faster than those students provided with no rules. Post-test mean scores were higher than pre-test mean scores. Because the post-test consisted of novel sentences, the results show that generalization occurred regardless of grammatical rules. Furthermore, from the students' descriptions of the rationales for their answers on the post-test, it became clear that some students could respond to new sentences without forming appropriate rules. The results suggest that grammatical rules can help international students to learn more quickly than they would without the rules, but providing rules is not a necessary condition for learning.
