Acquisition of the Article “The” by Persian Speakers

Persian language has no functional equivalents of the English article system and many Persian ESL learners have difficulty in using English articles, particularly the definite article “the”. This study examined whether the accuracy of article use by the students varied with respect to the proficiency level and also investigated whether L1 plays role in corrects using article. The data were collected through two questionnaires. Statistical analyses of the participants’ performance are: Analyzing English item and Persian item and analyzing both English and Persian item by comparing with each other and comparing proficiency level. The result shows there is a significant difference among the proficiency levels in the term of using corrects article in the English items. The advanced student tried to avoid substitution “the” with “a”.