English grammar is a critical part of English knowledge。 Most of the students in China regard Chinese as their native language, and English is the acquired second language。 From studies, linguisticians find that though English and Chinese are from different language families, as long as it is language acquisition, it can not be apart from language transfer, especially that of native language。 One of the famous linguisticians Eills once said that transfer of native language is an essential part of language transfer。 It is both the tool to learn second language and the obstacle to hinder second language acquisition (Ellis。 R, 1994:21)。

The goal of this paper is to state that in English grammar teaching, appropriately bending in positive transfer of Chinese can help students master the five basic sentence patterns better。 And, it can also help students understand and master English grammar more efficiently so as to improve their scores。

2。 Literature Review

In the past half century, the study of language transfer experienced twisty: between 1950s and 1960s, it was at high tide; while in 1970s, it declined because of hypothesis of creative construction; at present, people recognize the importance of language transfer and start a new round of studies。 Three points can be concluded from the development of language transfer: first, language transfer, which includes positive transfer and negative transfer, is unavoidable and essential in second language acquisition。 Second, in China, there are many researches on negative transfer and the empirical studies mainly focus on English writing, few of them on grammar。 Third, positive transfer of native language can facilitate second language acquisition。 Thus, teachers should apply positive transfer of native language to English teaching under the direction of transfer theories, which is a useful supplement to present English teaching。 To develop students’ awareness of positive transfer of native language, it should be emerged into middle school grammar teaching and strengthened properly。

 In a view of present state, many Chinese teachers lay great emphasis on grammar teaching。 However, there exists one common phenomenon in grammar lessons that teachers teach students grammar in a mechanical way。 They just list the language points one after another on the blackboard and explain them without any contexts。 From the history of English grammar instruction in China, we can draw a conclusion that the focus of dispute over grammar has shifted from “whether to teach” to “how to teach”。 Thus, it is very urgent for English educators and teachers to do some more researches on time-saving but efficient methods of English grammar teaching。论文网

3。 Language Transfer Theory

3。1 Definition of language transfer theory

In fact, it is really difficult to give a very clear and acceptable definition of language transfer。 However, it is very necessary to look back on the developing process of it and the various definitions provided by different scholars。 No matter when it comes to the language transfer theory, the usual way is to talk about “transfer” first。

The term, transfer, was originally derived from the Latin word “transfer”, and the meaning of it is “to bear, to print, to impress, or to copy (from one language to another)”。 As its meaning illustrates, it can also be used to refer to “to carry-over or generalization of the previous learned responses from one kind of situation to another” (Webster’s Third New World International Dictionary, 1986: 356-357)。 Besides, the further developed meaning now is used in linguistics。 However, transfer is considered so ambiguous a term that some scholars even put forward abandoning it or using it in highly strict ways。 Many others still utilize it without restriction in the linguistic field。 Therefore, it is necessary that the major notions of Language Transfer Theory offered by different scholars should be reviewed。