This paper examines the aspects of teaching the structural and semantic functions of the article in English. Writing samples from native Chinese- Japanese- Korean- Spanish- Farsi- French- Hebrew- Greek- Bengali- and Arabic-speaking ESL students illustrate the problems that exist in understanding the use of the determiner. Students are not aware of the particularizing functions of the determiner. They either prefer not to use it at all, in which case they get a telegraph-like style, or to use it randomly, hoping it will be correct. Factors which determine the use of "the" and "a" are reviewed and examples are provided for illustration. (JK)