On Language Transfer And English Teaching

Generally speaking, transfer refers to the effect that mother tongue or old language knowledge has on a target language or on the new language knowledge. This effect can be positive or negative, so the transfer can be classified as positive or negative transfer. Positive transfer may help language learners to comprehend a target language faster, while negative transfer hinders them from mastering a target language. Study on transfer has a history of about one hundred years, but the term transfer did not become popular until 1950s and 1960s. In L2 learning, the notion of transfer is closely related to the behaviorist theory, and the chief representatives of the theory were Skinner and Lado. They hold differences between L1 and L2 cause learning difficulties in L2 learning, which result in errors; while similarities between L1 and L2 language facilitate L2 learning. Nevertheless, such views on language learning have been challenged by cognitive linguists such as Chomsky and Selinker, who emphasize the internal factors of the human brain and believe that the innate properties of human mind can help language acquisition. They defy the importance of transfer. Although different linguists have different views on this issue, the author of this paper attaches importance on transfer for Chinese learners of English in learning. The study by Tran Chi- chau (Ellis, 1994)has shown that 51% of the errors made by a group of Chinese children learning English as aforeign language are attributed to their mother tongue's influence. Indeed, there are a great many differenees between English and Chinese because they belong to twd different language families, but there are also similarities between them. So learning English should not be a completely new activity for EFL learners in China, since they have already acquired their mother tongue. Thus, in English teaching and learning, it is valuable to compare the two languages and make full use of the transfer law .We believe that incorporating the concept of language transfer in English teaching may facilitate learners' learning of English. Besides, so far, though there are a lot of papers on transfer, most of them are on transfer theory or on negative transfer, few of them are on positive transfer and its practical function in English learning and teaching. Based on some theories concerning language transfer, by combining theory with practice, this paper aims at discussing how transfer is caused and how it affects English teaching and leaining. In a word, understanding how transfer is caused, making use of~positive transfer and avoiding negative transfer in English teaching and learning are of great practical significance.