On Negative Transfer Of Mother Tongue In High School English Writing

Based on the theory of transfer in the field of second language acquisition, this thesis tries to find an effective way to improve Chinese students' writing ability. Besides writing skills, native language transfer is one of the most important reasons for students' making errors in their writing. This study attempts to collect and analyze typical errors in compositions written by students in a local middle school. And a systematic analysis is made so that the errors are categorized as either phonological, lexical, or syntactical etc., which shows a strong negative transfer from their mother tongue. It seems that the errors learners make are irregular. Actually, there are certain rules among these errors. According to Krashen's Language Input Hypothesis, this thesis puts forward that negative transfer of mother tongue can be overcome by textual reciting. Textual reciting can increase the language sense and strengthen the language input. It helps to overcome negative transfer of mother tongue and improve English writing. Certainly, it doesn't mean that students must recite discourses mechanically. Indeed, textual reciting must be combined with exercises. In this way, students' language sense will be improved. Negative transfer of mother tongue will finally be overcome.