A Study On The Application Of Language Transfer Theory To English Grammar Teaching

In foreign language teaching, Language Transfer Theory has been a controversial topic and many linguistic researchers have done much comprehensive research on the positive and negative transfer, which is caused by using mother tongue (MT) in FLT (foreign language teaching). Transfer is a psychological term originally, which means the influence on the new knowledge and skills which has been caused by the previous learned knowledge and skills, even the methods and attitudes. The phenomena of language transfer actually exist in language learning. When Chinese students are learning English, they usually translate sentences into English by borrowing the grammar rules of their native language. According to the effect of language transfer, Language transfer can be divided into positive transfer and negative transfer. Positive transfer refers to the phenomenon that the learning and experience of a previous language facilitates the learning of another language while negative transfer refers to the phenomenon that the learning and experiences of a previous language interferes with the learning of another language.Nowadays, when learners learn English in high schools, especially learning English grammar, they mechanically apply the grammar rules of their mother tongue to English sentences, thus causing mistakes or Chinglish, which frequently gets students confused and exerts bad effects on students'enthusiasm and interest in their English learning. Besides, in high schools, to some extent, English grammar teaching is often ignored, which results in students'poor knowledge of grammar, affects the development of students'English language learning skill and language proficiency and prevents students'. from forming the habit of self-learning. As a matter of fact, grammar is the core of language, without grammar, language can't come into use and communication can't be fulfilled, let alone the development of the skills of listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating of the language. One's native language features influence the learning of a foreign language in many ways due to the negative transfer. Thus, the thesis attempts to discuss the application of transfer theory to language learning from psychological aspect, reviewing the current researches done by experts at home and abroad, and analyzing negative transfer of the native language to illustrate the Chinese language interference in English grammar through the empirical study on 80 students in senior Grade 2 taught by the author. For another, based on transfer theory, this thesis analyzes the negative transfer caused by the differences between Chinese and English language, trying to find out the reasons for making such mistakes and providing teachers and researchers with some strategies to get rid of the interference of the native language.