A Study On The Application Of Mother-tongue In Primary School English Teaching

Language transfer is a major area of controversy in second language acquisition and one of the important issues that the linguists and psychologists discuss. In foreign language learning, second language learners stimulate their mother tongue knowledge to develop or use their interlanguage, this is a process known as "language transfer." A positive transfer can promote foreign language learning, while a negative transfer can inhibit foreign language learning. Over the past few years, language transfer in the application of linguistics, second language acquisition and language teaching has always been a central issue despite of the fact that its importance was ignored for some time. A large number of empirical studies on the grammar, vocabulary and other aspects have shown that interlanguage influences the differences in language acquisition. Whether the mother tongue intervenes in language teaching has always been controversial topics. From a historical point of view, there are two major views on the function of mother tongue in language learning. One is over-exaggerating the significance of using the foreign language in classroom teaching, and ignoring the use of mother tongue by avoiding mother tongue as far as possible in order to develop thinking skills in English. Another view holds that the mother tongue plays an important role in foreign language teaching and learning, emphasizing that the mother tongue must be implemented in English teaching. The current teaching methods used in China, such as audio-lingual method, functional approach and communicative approach, advocate that the mother tongue should be used as little as possible. However, in spite of the great effort and time spent, English language teaching and learning has not been as satisfactory as expected. At the primary school level, in particular, the use of English alone has brought many problems in teaching. Will the use of mother language be more beneficial in primary English language teaching?On basis of related research on mother tongue in both second and foreign language teaching and learning at home and abroad, in this research, an experiment is carried out and a survey is conducted so as to find out whether the use of mother language in the primary English classroom teaching is effective or not. This research intends to answer three research questions:(1) Can the appropriate use of mother tongue improve students'listening and understanding abilities? (2) Can the appropriate use of mother tongue improve students' learning achievements in general? (3)Can the appropriate use of mother tongue help to stimulate students'interest in learning?Results of the study show that the application of mother tongue in primary English teaching improved both students'listening, speaking abilities, and learning achievements. The students became more interested in learning English and the overall quality of teaching was improved. This study implies that it is necessary for English teachers at the primary school level to make use of mother tongue in timely and appropriate ways.