The Negative Transfer Of Mother Tongue On The English Writing Of Junior Middle School Students

Ever since1950s, the linguists have gradually recognized that the native language has both positive and negative influences on foreign language learning. These kinds of influences are called language transfer, which could be divided into two types:the positive transfer and the negative transfer. Usually the positive transfer of mother tongue has good influence on the foreign language learning and the negative transfer vise verse. In China, it has been gradually discovered that the negative transfer has great influence on Chinese EFL students in middle schools. The paper aims to investigate the frequency of errors and mistakes in students’ English writing, and the main types of errors made by junior middle school students in their English writing,and find out the specific proportion of errors caused by negative transfer of mother tongue. It is hoped to help English teachers in China understand junior middle school students’ errors further, consequently, to stimulate them to treat errors correctly, and improve their English teaching. In the conclusion part of the thesis, some suggestions and methods are provided for the teachers and students to improve their learning and teaching of foreign language and to avoid the influence of the negative transfer of the mother tongue.