A Study Of The Positive Influence Of Chinese On English Learning In Senior High Schools

Foreign language teaching and research in the past overstressed the interference of the native language. And some teachers and linguists attribute the failure of foreign language learning to the use of the native language. It is proposed that the native language should be avoided in foreign language teaching and learning. Actually, knowledge and skills of one's native language work as important facilitating factors. Foreign language learning is a complicated psychological process. Based on the theories of foreign language learning and writer's teaching practice, the paper focuses on the importance of Chinese on English learning, explores the positive influence of the native language from linguistic and non-linguistic aspects, and carries out some empirical studies to testify the positive influence of native language. In a survey on Chinese knowledge and English learning, 500 students in two middle schools were involved in it; to compare correlation between Chinese students' foreign language learning and native language learning, scores of both English and Chinese final examination of 100 students from junior 2 and 100 students from senior 1 were collected in the study. The coefficient of correlation was figured out by Pearson product-moment correlation; 100 students from Senior 1 got involved in the teaching experiment to see if comparison method did better than non-comparison method. The result shows that Chinese plays an obviously positive role in cultivating the students' awareness of English attributive clause. In determining which relative pronoun or adverb to choose, the positive influence of Chinese is not obvious. On the basis of the studies, we can draw a conclusion that Chinese plays a positive influence on English learning in most cases especially when Chinese and English share similar structures; when the native language doesn't have the similar structures, the positive influence of Chinese is not obvious.