The Application Of Language Transfer Theory To English Grammar Teaching In Senior High Schools

English grammar teaching is part of English teaching in senior high schools. English Course Standard for High School (2003) stipulates the aims of grammar teaching in senior high schools: students should meet the requirements of describing and expressing opinions, attitudes and emotions in proper language forms as well as mastering basic discourse structure and logic relationship. Grammar teaching helps improve the students'language ability, while the language ability contributes to the students'development of comprehensive utilization in English. Yalden (1983) pointed out that language ability refers to the grammar structure and the ability of using grammar structure; that is to say, one would not have the communicative ability without language ability. At present, however, high school students commonly feel English grammar hard to learn. They are fed up with the cramming method of teaching grammar, with which they cannot have a strong memory. With the rise of communicative approach, the status of grammar teaching has been weakened. After a period of practice and thought, people come to realize the disadvantage of ignoring grammar teaching and take grammar teaching in communication and classes into consideration again. This doesn't mean to go back to traditional grammar teaching. How to adopt a more effective grammar teaching method has become a noticeable study field. Therefore, the author tries to apply language transfer theory to English grammar teaching so as to improve English grammar teaching and help students to improve English grammar study.Language transfer theory dates back to the earlier behaviorism view. Robert Lado(1957)pointed out learners usually transferred the structure, meaning and word order of their native language to the target language. After that, the theory was doubted. It is until recently that the theory has been acknowledged as one of the basic second language acquisition theories. Odlin (1989) defined that transfer is the influence resulting from the similarities and differences between the target language and any other language that has been previously (and perhaps imperfectly) acquired.Many scholars and researchers abroad have carried out various researches, which indicate that the application of language transfer theory is practicable in foreign languages teaching. In China, however, most researches on language transfer theory have been done mostly in the field of English writing in the universities, while few researches focused on English grammar teaching, especially in senior high schools. During the study in Shandong Normal University for Master Degree, the author has read many books and academic articles about language transfer theory which is applied to foreign languages teaching. Supported by language transfer theory, this study attempts to apply language transfer theory to grammar teaching in the hope of improving the present grammar teaching in senior high schools. Therefore, the author carried out this study trying to apply language transfer theory to English grammar teaching, focusing on senior high schools'research. This study is aimed to address the following questions: 1.Whether language transfer theory could be applied to senior high schools'English grammar teaching; 2. With the application of language transfer theory, how effective it is in improving the students'grammar study in senior high schools; 3.How to apply language transfer theory to senior high schools'English grammar teaching.The experiment was carried out from September to December, 2006. Two intact classes were selected from Senior Two of Rongcheng No.3 Middle School. Language- transfer-oriented method was applied in the experimental class (Class 1), while the traditional teaching method was used in the control class (Class 2). Data collection involved both scores of pretest and posttest, questionnaire surveys, and the data was analyzed by SPSS. The results of research reveal that the students in the experimental class have improved their English grammar study more rapidly than those in the control class. At the same time, both the students in high-score group and the students in low-score group have got great improvement in English grammar study during this experiment.The study demonstrates that language-transfer-theory-oriented teaching model is of great value in improving senior high school students'English grammar study. It's hoped that this study will shed light on grammar teaching in senior high schools.