The Influence and Countermeasures of Negative Transfer on English Syntactic learning in Junior Middle School of Western Hunan

滕梓宇

【Abstract】In our country， School in developed areas obtain fruitful result through pilot reform， but in underdeveloped areas， especially in western Hunan， application based on new curriculum standard have deficiency. In view of the traditional syntactic teaching problems， this paper from the specific situation that students in junior middle school of Western Hunan are affected by the negative transfer of mother tongue under traditional teaching mode， discussed to solve students common syntax errors and come up with relevant solution approaches provided to teaching reference.

【Key words】Negative Transfer of Mother Tough； Second Language Acquisition； Task-based Language Teaching

1. The common sentence problems of junior formers in Western Hunan

There are eight kinds of special sentence patterns in Chinese， including “Existential sentence、Negative sentence、Gearing sentence、Pivotal sentence、Comparative sentence、Multiple expression、Non-subject sentence”. In order to find out what is easier to make students meet learning obstacles， a questionnaire is designed for the whole of middle school English teachers. By comparing the questionnaire， its easy to see three sentence pattern has a high error rate. The possible error rates were more than 80%of the test. These sentence were Gearing Sentence and Negative sentence.

2. Countermeasures of syntactic problems based on TBLT

This chapter mainly talked about countermeasures of syntactic problems.

2.1 Problem Solving Task of gearing sentence

Problem solving task provides students with evaluation and feedback for knowledge .students can learn to sum up syntactic rules and apply their knowledge to all， which have great effect to reduce the interference of negative transfer.

2.1.1 Problem Solving Task of dangling modifiers problem

Pre-task： Combined with teacher`s language statement and example demonstration， in the case that students have read syntactic knowledge， students have basic understanding of usage regarding dangling modifiers modifying main clause. Students should learn language knowledge needed to complete the task， and let them realize these language knowledge are loosely linked to the next task.

Task cycle： a. Firstly， the teacher introduce the topic. Such as “Seeing their examination result， he was very upset”. b. Questions were asked. Why was he upset？ Expand your mind about what's possible，Please. c. Divide the students into several groups. Demand groups answer by group discussion. Group A：His house burned， he was very upset. Group B： Having killed a child， he was very upset. Group C： Being in trouble， he was very upset. d. Teacher summarizes each answer of every group and evaluate. Wrong sentence patterns should be pointed out timely. Such as， Group A use dangling modifiers to modify non-subject.

Post task： Ask students to finish the quiz teacher make on dangling modifiers. The type of questions are items of error correction and Completion. Students are required to complete all practice correctly and teacher emphasizes dangling modifiers must modify subject.

2.2 Information Gap Task of negative sentence

Under information gap task， students can form specific insights on the use of negative sentences， not just the knowledge of book. Pragmatics is wider and error rate is lower.

2.2.1 Information Gap Task of lacking auxiliary

Pre-task：Combined with teacher`s language statement and example demonstration， in the case of students have read syntactic knowledge， students have basic understanding of negative sentence structure.

Task cycle：Teacher layouts a solitaire game regarding usage of auxiliary. Subject is my favorite and least favorite food. a. Teacher asks what kind of food is your favorite food and what kind of food is your least favorite food. b. A Student in a group answer I like… most. I dont like… most. Then， the student asks another one I think you like …most and you dont like… most. What kind of food is your favorite food？ What kind of food is your least favorite food？ Students are required to finish task between group and class. Teacher summarizes gap information and emphasizes correct sentence structure repeatedly.

Post task： Ask students to finish the quiz teacher make on negative sentence. The type of questions is items of error correction and translation.

3. Conclusion

Compared with 3P mode， TBLT can promote the syntactic teaching more effectively and have obvious effect on reducing interference of negative transfer. Thus it can be seen that compared with 3P mode， the TBLT can improve students syntactic level more effectively. These methods were proved that have obvious effect in response to these specific problem.

References：

[1]Ellis，R.Task-Based Language Learning and Teaching[M].Oxford：Oxford University Press，2003.