Abstract：This study explores the effect of the continuation task on Chinese EFL learners’ article use. Sixty-seven intermediate English learners were randomly classified into three groups to finish continuation tasks, reading tasks and topic writing tasks，respectively. The research design in volves a pretest, three tasks, an immediate posttest and a delayed posttest. The results are summarized as follows. (1) Scores of article use in the continuation task group improved significantly. More specifically, misuse of articles showed a significant downward tendency, while omission and redundancy did not show any improvement. Scores of article use in the reading task and topic writing task groups did not show any significant change. (2) In the continuation task group，the error rate of the three types of error of indefinite article use decreased significantly. The effect of the continuation task maintains on the decrease of misuse and redundancy of indefinite article，but not in the omission of indefinite article use. However，there was no significant change in the error rate of the three error types of definite article use. The results indicate that the continuation task has a promoting effect on the acquisition of English articles to a certain extent, especially on the acquisition of indefinite articles, but the effect on the use of the definite article needs further study. Key words: the continuation task; alignment; English articles
