Influence Of Mother Tongue Transfer On Chinese High School Students' English Writing Teaching And Learning

With more and more chances for English learners in china to communicate with English-speaking foreigners, it's essential to develop their communication competence in English and how to achieve the goal has thus become the primary task of education as well as the whole society. Writing is such an important means of communication in written forms that its proper expressions of ideas and feelings directly determine the success of communication.The current study aims to investigate the transfer of mother tongue on English learners'writing in senior high school and explore efficient teaching and learning methods and strategies. The focus is to explore the complex influence of native language transfer on English writing of senior high school students, errors that occur in English writing and causes of them. In the thesis, the author puts forward two hypotheses. One is that negative transfer of mother tongue is one of the reasons to cause poor performance in English writing of senior high school. The other one goes that negative transfer is more obvious in English writing than positive transfer in the whole writing process.A total of 120 students from Zhanhua NO.1 Senior High School participated in the study. They further split into three groups for different tasks by means of different instruments. The study employed Think-aloud Protocol, translation test and interview. As for the procedures of TAP, firstly, the author presents the standards of this method. Then the writing papers are handed out and the subjects are asked to speak out their whole writing process. The author has prepared a high-quality tape recorder as well as a subtle timer, in order to record students'whole thinking process and the overall time. As for the test's procedures, the first step is to give subjects instructions about the whole process. Secondly, test papers are handed out and the subjects are asked to finish them as required. Next, test papers are collected on time. At last, the author grades the papers and tries to find out the errors in their papers. Individual interviews are carried out by asking questions in a relaxing and comfortable circumstance for subjects to present their real answers. At the same time, records are kept intact in the whole process of interviews by tape recorder for further research.The findings show that language transfer isn't an automatic and static process, but a complicated dynamic cognitive one and that there are many different factors contributing to learners'errors in English writing. Through the analysis of the errors, the author finds different linguistic factors, such as lexical, syntactic and semantic elements, all have an effect on the transfer of mother tongue. Furthermore, nonlinguistic factors, for example, cultural aspects, different modes of thinking and environmental aspects, also affect transfer of mother tongue in English writing. In the case of English learners in senior high school, a small vocabulary, lack of practice and writing skills, and inadequate knowledge of English grammar, sentence structures and English cultures are just the obstacles that result in the poor quality of their English compositions.Pedagogically, the findings suggest that proper recognition of transfer of mother tongue in English writing is critical and that effective teaching and learning methods concerning how to make full use of transfer of mother tongue are necessary. The suggestions put forward by the author are as follows. Now that mother tongue can work as a medium of transformation and confirmation during the thinking process in English writing, English learners in senior high school should hold proper attitudes towards the dynamic roles of mother tongue in English writing, especially its positive transfer, by seeking the common ground and reserving divergences between first language and second language acquisition; in English classes of senior high school, teachers can give instructions b making contrast or comparison between Chinese and English or employing a certain amount of Chinese to facilitate his or her instructions, so as to make students acquire language points and usage efficiently, that is to say, they can refer to mother tongue for help by using it as a medium for explaining and understanding; and teachers should balance two groups of relationship, process and product as well as content and form, by means of teaching linguistic, cultural aspects and efficient rhetorical devices in teaching.From the data analysis and findings of it, the thesis has certain theoretical and practical significance worth mentioning here. On one hand, the thesis makes certain contributions to the research topic of transfer of mother tongue in English writing, that is to say, it enriches the transfer theory and pedagogy. On the other hand, it deepens the understanding of the existing relationship between transfer of mother tongue and English writing in senior high school, and it also helps to deal with the related relationship in English writing more correctly; besides, the suggestions presented by the author also benefit English writing teaching and learning in senior high school. Whereas, due to various kinds of causes, such as the limited knowledge mastered by the author, limited time and conditions, the thesis needs more empirical researches and quantitative data to make it become perfect in later days.