The Integration Of Contrastive Studies Between English And Chinese In EFL Writing Classes

The purpose of this research is to find a more effective method of teaching English writing to Chinese university students. The results of the research can help college writing teachers gain insights into the theory of contrastive studies and their application in writing classes.The past research showed that contrastive studies were usually applied in teaching material development, and the application of them in class could only increase students' awareness of the differences between native language and target language instead of producing obvious effect in students' writings.In this research, an experiment was carried out to test the effect of contrastive teaching in the areas of topic sentence, paragraph development, transitional words, unity and idiomatic writing. After the experiment, a survey was carried out in the experimental group to determine the students' opinions on Chinese-language negative transfer and the effect of contrastive method in the evaluated areas. After the survey, an interview was carried out with six students in the experimental group to determine the reasons for the answers to some questions in the questionnaire.The experiment results show contrastive method can produce the most obvious effect in transitional words and topic sentence, less effect in paragraph development and idiomatic writing and the least effect in unity. Most students indicate that contrastive teaching is effective and more effective than traditional method in the evaluated areas. Contrastive teaching can increase students' interest in English writing and produce a sudden enlightenment in the English way of writing. Besides, the differences of requirements between English and Chinese are diminishing in the area of topic sentence.