It is acknowledged by many teachers of English that the article system is notoriously difficult to teach. The works by scholars such as Master (1990) have already made many contributions to article instruction. However, second language (L2) learners of English potentially face different challenges, as it is well known that first language (L1) transfer effects may help or hinder acquisition of L2 properties (see White, 2003). Japanese is one language that lacks articles (the and a) and obligatory plural marking on nouns and therefore poses difficulties for Japanese learners of English. Conversely, English is a language with articles and obligatory plural marking: The definite singular NP has a unique status within the range of definite article functions as Dayal (2004) suggests that the definite singular generic denotes a taxonomic entity whilst bare plurals denote natural kinds. A natural kind represents a single abstract individual such as an animal or plant species by name or by a definite singular/bare plural description. The examples in (1) and (2) are not identical despite both being generic, according to Krifka et al.(1995), as the definite singular and bare plural in (1) are NP-level generics which can refer to natural kinds with a predicate like be extinct. The indefinite and bare plural are sentence-level generics as they are compatible with characterizing sentences: they are used to make a general statement, as in example (2).