Other areas NEGATIVE MOTH ER TONGUE LANGUAGE TRANSFER INTO ENGLISH WRITING LEARNING OF FERST YEAR ADVANCED PROGRAM STUDENTS AT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF FORESTRY Pham Cong Ngoc MA Vietnam Nationa[.]
Trang 1NEGATIVE MOTH ER TONGUE LANGUAGE TRANSFER INTO ENGLISH WRITING LEARNING OF FERST YEAR ADVANCED PROGRAM STUDENTS
AT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF FORESTRY
Pham Cong Ngoc
MA Vietnam National University of Forestry
SUMMARY
In leaming a foreign language or English, learners face lots of challenges both of which are subjective and objective One of those challenges is language transfer (or negative interferences) from mother tongue to Enghsh This article presented the analysis and description of language transfer in English writing products of
80 fust year students at Vietnam Forestry University Language uansfer is described in terms of lexis, syntax, and discourse which are selected from 3 types of writing: letter, description and narrative The result pointed out some common errors in students' writing because of their mother tongue interference Of those writing errors, lexis level ones are the most common, and in different types of writing the error frequencies are also vaned Besides, the article supposed some main reasons why the smdent made such errors As a result, a set of suggested solutions are given
Keywords: Analysis, error, language transfer, level, mother tongue, target language
I INTRODUCTION
1.1 Language transfer definition
According to Webster's Third New World
Intemational Dictionary (1986), the concept of
language transfer derives from a Latin word
"tranferre" - it means carry, or bear, or print or
copy (in the field of art and sculptare) from
one surface to another Also, this dictionary
define the term as replacing a learner's leamt
language expressions of some certam
sitaations by those of other sitaations Besides,
transfer can also be imderstood as the
application of stadies or knowledge, skills,
apptitades from one profession to another In
liguists' point of view, language transfer is that
a learner takes away or generalizes his/ her
own understanding about his mother tongue (or
native language - NL) m order to help himself
acquire another foreign language (target
language TL) Webster's Third New World
International Dictionary doesn't clarifies the
transfer of a language into another language is
good or bad, it merely defines the origin and
natare of a word
ta general, in tenns of linguistics, it is vita!
to look at the stable structare of a language
system However, when we compare all
graminar mles of the target language (TL) with
those of the mother tongue, it is easy to understand that the language transfer is the language mistakes Therefore, the language transfer from mother tongue into target language is classified into two main categories: positive transfer and negative transfer As a result, in language teaching, the teacher advise the learner to use positi\'e mother tongue transfer and try to avoid negative transfer because it usually slows down their language acquisition
In the field of pragmatics, a branch of linguistics, researchers pay much concern on how the transfer from mother tongue to foreign language affect the learner's understandmg and speech act in the target language In reality, language transfer has attracted a great deal of concern of scholars in different fields These scholars also give out different definitions and explanations of this concept Scarcella (1983) paid much attention to the language transfer in the angle of discourse intonation This linguist said that language transfer is the reflection of"' converstion featares" (topic sequence, back chennel cues, and pause fillers) as means and tanctions in conversational communication Kellenuan and Sharvvood Smith (1986) stadied the accuracy of this concept and
Trang 2pointed out the differences between the mother
tongue transfer and mother tongue affects on
foreign language acquisition In taeir outlook,
language transfer is different from affects
caused by mterlanguage Language transfer is
tae language concepts and habits gamed from
motaer tongue attached onto target language
witaout any impacts resulted by interlanguage
(DL) According to T.Odlm (1989), language
transfer is actaally tae influences of a learner's
motaer tongue features (knowledge, learning
strategies, experiences, culture, etc) on his/ her
acquisition and use of foreign language
T.Odlm also pomted out taat negative transfer
is tae incorrect or tmstatable application of
language means, styles, structures, norms, and
mles of motaer tongue into foreign language
acquisition
Beebe and et al (1990) defmed taat
language transfer refers to ability to apply tae
socio-culture features of source language learner
(Ll) into target language (L2) speech act or any
language fetures
Corder (1981) was tae first person who
mentions tae recogmtion of tae termmology
"language transfer" He ignited the idea for
researches carried out by bota language
teachers and native speakers m order to
investigate tae concept m tae angle of
language rules and norms He suggested taat
the research resources exist m language
learners' speech utterances
1.2 Language transfer identification
ta Kasper's (1992) pomt of view, tae
common way to identify a language transfer in
a stady on second language acquisition (SLA)
is something like an mformal estimation
metaod (Kasper, 1992) In tius metaod, we
decide whetaer a transfer can be established by
lookmg at tae similarities and differences of
tae percentage by which a particular category
of mterlanguage features (such as a semantic
formulae, strategy, or linguistic form) occurs m
fhe NL, TL, and IL data Anotaer way to determme a transfer is to use a statistically significant metaod
A general guidmg principle is, if a pragmatic feahn-e is lack of statistically significant differences in tae frequencies of a pragmatic feature m NL, TL, and IL, taen it can be operationally defined as positive transfer On tae contrary, statistically significant differences m tae frequencies of a pragmatic feature between IL-TL and NL-TL and lack of statistically significant differences between IL and Ll can be operationally defined as positive fransfer On tae contrary, statistically significant differences in tae frequencies of a pragmatic feature between
IL-TL and NL^IL-TL and lack of statistically significant diflferences between IL and Ll can
be operationally defined as negative transfer (Kasper, 1992) Takahashi (1995) fiuther elaborated on positive transfer as "similarity in terms of response frequencies in NL, IL, and TL", while negative transfer as "similar response frequencies in NL, IL wita different response frequencies between NL and TL and between EL and TL"
According to Kasper (1992), tae process to identify a transfer follows basically three steps: First, we start frem an observation on tae learner's productive mterlanguage data Second, under tae giudance of our definition of
a transfer, we concentrate on tae different means taat learners employ in expressing and understanding a speech act in tae TL And third, we sort out from our collected data the transfer features
1.3 Negative mother tongue transfer into English writing of l " year students of advanced program at Vietnam National University of Forestry
Language transfer from motaer tongue (source language) mto second language (foreign language) is an important and popular
184 JOURNAL OF FOREST SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY NO 3 - 2016
Trang 3feature m second language acquisition, and it is
one of essential evidences to explam otaer
properties in tae learner's language leammg
Language transfer can be bota positive and
negative that may be caused by tae mam
reason - t a e big differences between tae two
languages Moreover, this phenomenon is
reflected in many language levels and featares
In reatity, tae negative transfer seems to be
bad affect to tae target language acquisition
However, it attracts much more concern from
metaodologists and teachers than tae positive
transfer which creates many similar utterances
wita target language because it causes more
problems m terms of approaching and usmg
language
Language transfer is identified cleariy m
language utterances (spoken and written
forms) of leamers in general and the T' year
stadents of advanced program at Vietaam
National University of Forestry (VNUF) In
reality of teachmg writing skills to the stadent,
the writer recognizes many language transfers
in their compositions which can be seen as
"mistakes" There is a trend taat the stadent
often use taeir own ways of expressing ideas
and/or translate word by word from mother
tongue to Enghsh in their writing Those can
be considered mistakes Some of their popular
mistakes are word choice, word order which
are caused by tae differences between the two
languages Therefore, the large proportion of
stadents' writing is their mother tongue
featares transfer into English Their writing
products can't express academy, ways of
thinking, and styles as the native writers' ones
As a result, the researcher sees the necessity to
carry out a stady on negative Vietnamese
language transfer into English writing which
hopefully contributes to arouse the stadent's
awareness of those mistakes and gradually
improves both teaching and writing to the l "
year smdents of advanced program at VNUF
H RESEARCH METHODS 2.1 Research subjects
The research subjects are 40 first year stadents (K60) of advanced program at VNUF They all learn General English (18 credits) in the first year and taen use English as a tool to access otaer profession subjects Most of tae stadents at 'VNUF in general and tae stadents
of tae research in particular come from mountamous and nual areas They haven't been exposed to English writmg techniques and methodology basically Only a small proportion of taem are diagnosed to be quite good at English grammar yet these stadents still lack proper writmg skills, especially when taey write higher level and more complicated compositions which require more stmctures,
pattems, styles, discoiuse, etc In their
leammg, writing skill is taught mtermingly with otaer language skills which are all essessed by tae teacher All the compositions collected by the researcher are admitted by tae teachers to be synthesized and analized for tae research The stadents are not informed before and during the process in order to ensure tae objectiveness
2.2 Research instruments
Two main research instruments are contrastive analysis (CA) and erroranalysis (EA) of which CA is tae mamly basic mstrument used to analyze the impacts (or transfer) of their mother tongue on their English writing products Accordmg to Richards and Schmidt (2002), CA emphasizes
on contrasting two language systems in order
to point out problems faced by leamers This metaod mdicates that impacts of learners' mother tongue features on English writing are really complicated James (2001) describes taat tais methods can be used as an altemative approach to recognize ignorant mistakes or ertors made by second language learners Many linguists also agree this method's
Trang 4effectiveness In conclusion, tais method not
only helps tae researcher find out tae negative
mother tongue transfer in second language
leaming but also facilitates learners tmderstand
tae reasons why they make such mistakes to
correct and avoid
Data collection instrument: three types of
writmg are selected They are informal letter
writmg, description and narrative These types
can reflect tae stadent's knowledge syntaesis
and skills taught during taeir stadying process
The topics are qmte familiar to taeir daily life
so taey can express wita true love, feelmg and
thinkmg The lengta of each composition is
about 80 to 120 words TTien, taey are
collected to be syntaesized and analyzed
- Data analysis: 120 compositions (3 types,
40 composition each) are collected randomly
and analj^ed to find out mistakes/errors caused
by negative language transfer Those mistakes
are also reanalyzed by four lectiuers of English
who have been working at universities m
Vietaam for 10 years or more The research
works on tae frequency and percentage of tae
mistakes
HI RESEARCH RESULTS
3.1 Negative mother tongue transfer into
English reflected by the mistakes in the
student's writing products
After syntaesizing and analyzing, the
mistakes/errors collected mclude 639 m
narrative writing, 564 in descriptive writmg
and 513 in letter writing It can be understood
taat almost taose mistakes are mamly caused
by negative motaer language transfer into tae
stadent's English writmg The listed mistakes
are categorized: tense usage, word use,
meaning, articles, prepositions, word order,
numbers, fragment, run-on sentences, voices,
be missmg, mfmitive, gerund, subject-verb
agreement, punctaation, style These mistakes
are sorted out and discussed in terms of three
criteria: lexis, syntax and discourse
3.1.1 Lexis
Havmg been syntaesized ansanalysed, the common mistakes/errors appearing in 120 compositions fall into categories of number and word choice
Number: This type of mistake is quite
popular m tae writing products collected The stadent often transfer kinds of noun in Vietaamese language into English nouns, so taey do not put "s" or "es" after singular nouns
to form pltu-al nouns Besides, taey often put "s"
or "es" after singular nouns to express plural nouns while taey do not need because taey are iiregular ones Therefore, it fossilizes in taeu mind taat whenever taey face tae ideas of plural nouns "cac/nhiing" in Vietaamese, taey certainly transfer mto "s/es" in English altaou^
it is not always correct because taeir motaer tongue and English are different in this feature
Wrong word choice: This is one of tae
most common mistakes made by English leamers m general and tae stadents of tae research m particular While writmg, taey often transfer mto English tae words taat appear in taeir mind first, so tae words taey use are incorrect or unsuitable and lead to misunderstandmg of readers and reduce commuiucative effectiveness Particularly, for some new, unfamiliar words, tae stodent tend
to make more mistakes of word use and word collocation It is a common phenomenon taat stadents tend to use words or phrases which taey feel correct when translating mto taek motaer tongue For illustration, "big road" mstead of "wide road", "her major is accountant" mstead of "her major is accotmting", "big ram" for "heavy rain",
"teacher is what I like most" for "teaching is what I like most", "wide shoulders" instead of
"broad shoulders", "hurt eyes" for "sore eyes",
"on tae world" for "in tae world", and so on
A part from tais, one typical mistake of wrong word choice as a result of negative
186 JOURNAL OF FOREST SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY NO 3 - 2016
Trang 5language transfer is using irrelevantiy
redundant words because it is a very common
cultural and language feature of Vietnamese
people For example, they often say "cim
khong dugc hiit tauoc" (prohibit not to smoke)
It should heprohibit smoking; or "giai phap tfii
tm nhat" (tae best perfect resolution), English
people will usethe best resolution/the perfect
resolution; or "taeo quan diem cua toi, t6i nghi
rang" (in my opinion, I think), in fact it should
befn my opinion/I think, etc In English
speakers' taought, one word can itself
expresses tae full meaning, but Vietaamese
stadents often transfer taefr motaer tongue into
taat case Therefore, taey enventaally make
mistakes For illustration, " In my opinion, I
think" is one typical nustake because when we
use In my opinion, we do not need / think Or
in "Altaough S + V, but S + V" we cannot use
"but", we just need a comma
3.1.2 Syntax
Among tae listed mistakes, mistakes of
syntax are fairly enormous such as verb tense,
to be missing, preposition, phrasal verbs,
subject - verb agreement, article, word order,
voice, punctoationgrammar stmcture
Verb tenses: Because taere is a big
difference in terms of verb between tae two
languages (English verbs are changed withm
taemselves whereas Vietaamese ones do not,
taey must go wita otaer words to reflect one
function or meanmg), usmg English verbs is
one of tae most complicated challenge to tae
stadent when writing narrative and letters
English verbs and verb transformation are
more various taan Vietaamese ones, so tae
stadent often transfer taefr smgle word verbs
into English This means that taey do not use
English verbs in tae correct forms or tenses
For example, one stadent tainks m his mind an
utterance: "h6m qua John di sieu thi dk mua it
tauc pham", taen taey will automatically
transfer into English "John go to supermarket
to buy some food yesterday", in fact, he should
write "John went to supermarket to buy some
food yesterday"
Tobe missing: Another big difference
between English and Vietaamese is that there
is no verb "la" (to be) in Vietoamese language, but taere is only relative verb "la" So, in many cases, taey forget tae role and appearance of tae verb "tobe" m sentences For instance, "He washing tae dishes when tae phone rang" is
often used mstead of "He was washing tae
dishes when tae phone rang" When syntaesizing and analyzing 120 compositions
of tae stadents, taere are more taan 100 nustakes/errors of this type lacking to be, especially m tae narrative compositions
Preposition: Anotaer negative language
transfer in stadents' writing productions is reflected by usmg wrong preposition It means taat tae stadent often transfer incorrectly Vietaamese prepositions into English ones because of tae difference between tae two language systems For example, taey write "on tae sky" for "m tae sky"; or "up tae sky" for
"m tae sky"; or "on tae world" mstead of "m tae world"; "discuss about /of something" for
"discuss something"; or "get married wita Marry" for "get marry to Mary"; and so forth Those mistakes/errors can be explained fiiat Vietaamese people have a different way of thinking m terms of location, dfrection, movement, etc They often subjectively mention or place taemselves m each case of speakmg context to describe things or objects
In tae sentence "Con chim bay tren trai" (The bfrd is flying m tae sky), tae preposition "tren trcri" means "on the head of tae speaker", so taey use "on tae sky'' Or in tais sentence "Ho dang cheo tauyen duoi song" (They are sailmg boat m tae river), taey assume taat tae preposition "duoi" means "under taeir position" (The speakmg is standing on tae river bank)
Trang 6Subject verb agreement: Subject-verb
agreement is one language feature taat
challenges the stadent when writing In
Vietaamese language- a single word language,
verbs are never changed taemselves whatever
tae subject or tae verb of tae sentence is Verbs
must go wita other functional words to express
grammar and meaiung m different contexts
However, in English, each subject of a
sentence needs a suitable verb form As a
result, tae stadent often make this kind of
mistake For illustration, tae sentence "Me em
taucmg niu cho ca rtaa mot bQa an tainh soan
vao dip cuoi taan" is often transferred mto
English "My motaer often cook a big and
delicious meal for tae my family at weekends"
They shoud use "cooks"
- Articles: Vietaamese is also different from
English in tae field of articles which does not
exist in Vietaam Articles are tae words taat
appear before notms to support or identify
taem ta Vietaamese language, some words are
often used such as chiec, cai, con, diia, qua,
vai, nhiing, Whereas, English language has
three types of articles (a/an/tae) which fall mto
two categories: defimte and in definite That
can explam why stadents usually make
mistakes One typical mistake taat appears a
lot m taefr writing compositions is taat
stadents do not often use definite the article In
"House which my family bought last year locates
in a quiet street", "the" must be used before
"house"
Voice: This type of negative transfer
occurs less frequently taan otaer ones because
taere is a significant similarity between
Vietaamese and English m this pomt
However, because tae stadent are influenced
by taeir motaer tongue, they tend to use wrong
form of voice in English in some
cfrcumstances
However, because of motaer tongue
influence many of tae stadents use wrong
English passive voice in some cases Most of taem whenever face contexts in which they fransfer "bi" or "duoc" from thefr language, they automatically translate into English passive voice witaout wondermg whether tae sitaations need or not Let's take this utterance
as illustration "Toi bi durt tay", many stadents write it in English "I was cut in my finger" Actually, it should be uttered "I cut myself in
my finger" Anotaer big mistake is taat stadents often use passive voice for mtransitive verbs which must be used in active voice For example, "My house is needed to redecorate before Tet holiday" instead of "My house needs redecorating before Tet holiday"
Wrong word order: It can be understood
taat English word order is quite different from Vietaamese one After syntaesizmg and analyzmg mistakes in tae stadents' writing products, negative transfer from motaer tonguge is reflected m many noun and adjective word orders Usually, English word order is opposite to Vietaamese one, so tae stadent often write English in tae way taeir native language appears For example, taey use
"a book English" instead of "an English book";
or "gate house" for "house gate" In addition,
m almost Vietaamese noun phrases (mcluding adjectives), adjectives often appear after tae head noun to defme or support tae head noun's meanmg Whereas, m English noun phrases, most of adjectives stand before tae head noun Therefore, this is a quite popular phenomenon
of taeir writmg compositions Anotaer mistake which can be hsted m tae research altaough it
is not typical is tae order of adjectives in one noun phrase consisting of more taan one adjective, or m an adjective phrase According native English, it is an advisable tip to remember tae order of adjective in one noun or adjective pharase It is OSHACOM (Opinion-Size-Shape-Aged-Colour-Origm-Material) However, not many stadents know tais tip JOURNAL OF FOREST SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY NO 3-2016
Trang 7- Infinitive and gerund: Altaough this kind
of mistake is not so popular as others, it still
causes some problems in tae stadent's writmg
effectiveness Usually, the stadent are not
aware of tae existence of linkmg verbs m
sentences because in taefr motaer tongue does
not have this feature For example, taey often
write this sentence "My dad wants go out wita
his fnendsm his free time" They do not pay
attention to tae role of "to" like this one "My
dad wants to go out wita his fiiends m his free
time"; or "Our teacher allowed us finish our
home assignment after next Monday" It must
be "Our teacher allowed us to fmish our home
assignment after next Monday"; or m tae
sentence "She is fond of collect photos of
Uncle Ho" taey must use "collecting" instead
of "collect", etc
Punctuation: Ptmctuation plays an
important role m bota native and foreign
language leaming of leamners in general and
tae stadents in tae research m particular The
stadent often make this type of mistake
because many of taem were not taught
carefiilly about ptmctuation functions and
usages at lower educational levels That is why
taey often transfer negatively mto EngUsh
Among tae mistakes/errors listed of this type,
punctuation ormttance mistake is fafrly
popular, especially comma (,) They do not use
comma separate segments of a fliU meanmg
where it is necessary Sometimes, when one
sentence finishes taey forget to use a fidl stop
(.) Besides, tae stadent also use punctuation
incorrectly m writmg, i.e taey do not place
each kmd of ptmctuation where it should be
For illustration, taey use a stop to separate two
segments in a sentence, or a comma to separate
two sentences Particularly, when writmg
English compound sentences, taey are usually
confused wita punctuation used wita
mdependent conjimction words (And, Nor,
But, Or, Yet, So) For example, in tae sentence
"Altaough mymumis so busy but she oftenarranges her taskswell to look after my family", taey use "but" instead of a comma Apart from this, when writing reported speech
of mterrogatives, tae stadent often use question mark (?) at the end of tae sentence because they think taat it is still an interrogative as the dfrect sentence Let's take this sentence as an example "I ask my mmn why she doesn't feel tired after a hard workmg day?" Also, in letter writing tae stadent usually make mistake of using exclamation mark (!) After "Dear" taey use exclamation mark (it must be a comma) because taey transfer negatively from taefr Vietaamese
3.1.3 Discourse
After tae researcher syntaesizes and analyses tae mistakes/errors m tae stadent's writing products, tae mistakes can be categorized into some main types as follows
Fragment: In 120 compositions, mistake
of fragment is relatively popular, especially m long sentences such as compound and complex sentences, tae stadent often taink taat a subordinate clause can stand mdependently as
a mam clause oranmdependent clause So, after writmg a subordinate clause, they immedialtely use a full stop (.) As a result, the sentence is unfinished, it is only a fragment which does not express a fiill meanmg
- Informal style: Many stadents make taeir
writmg too formal by using words or phrase taat are extremely formal For example, when taey describe relatives, friends, family members, taey use too formal expressions and style which is not necessary Meanwhile, some otaers are not aware of taat who will be readers, then they do not pay attention to tae usmg of suitable and formal expressions in taefr writing compositions Moreover, m letter writing, because of tae difference between tae two languages in terms of format and formal stmctures, tae stadent often make mistakes of
Trang 8addressing, greeting and closing a letter For
example, they sometimes write "Dear
professor John", (in fact, when addressing a
person with his title we must use his full
namel)
Meaning: Most of stadents at VNUF
come from mral and remoted areas, so taefr
knowledge of English language gained during
the previous years is still limited Especially,
first year stadents do not possess an enough
amoimt of vocabulary, verb pattems, and
stmctures so they usually get stack m
expressing a certain idea in English
Eventaally, they make more mistakes in taefr
writmg process That is why they just express
ideas within thefr poor knowledge of language
As a result, it can be seen that thefr writing
ideas are poor, unclear, like beat around tae
bush, tais leads to a sitaation in which they
cannot go dfrectiy to what they want to
express There are quite many irtclevant and
redundant words in their compositions causing
readers' contasion or misunderstanding
- Discourse unity: It can be seen that among
the listed mistakes, this type of ertor happens
with low frequency This is because the
stadent's way of tainking in taeir native
language Discourse unity mistake in terms of
meaning seems to be acceptable wita a little
frequency, but in terms of using linking words
or connectors, there are still quite a lot For
example, "Although , but ', "Because ,
so " hay "Because, " "If " (after a
conditional clause, there must be a comma),
Apart from these, in many compositions, the
stadent sometimes omit linking word "and" or
they use "and" many times in a sentence
3.2 Negative transfer from mother
tongue into English is reflected in
frequency of making mistakes
According to the research's analysis,
frequency of mistakes/errors in the smdent's
writing products is various Firstly, mistakes of
English verb tenses and forms appear m tae nairative writing wita a large propotion The stadent are often unaware of using correct verb forms in each certam sitaation One typical case is that taey use present simple tense to describe past sitaations This is regarded as tae most popular mistake made by negative language transfer However, tais sort of mistake happens m descriptive writing with less propotion mainly because taat the stadent
do not have to change verb tenses much It just needs merely one or two tenses From tae research results, it can be viewed that in descriptive writing, the stadent make a lot of mistakes of word choice (20.35%), word order (18.85%), and fewer meaning expressions (10, 25%), article (12.76%) (the propotion of this mistake is nearly similar in all three types of writing) Mistakes of numbers stands at 7.85%, lower than mistake of subject - verb agreement (17.8%) These two last kinds of mistakes are quite high m otaer two types of writing Hence, mistakes of word choice, word order, and subject - verb agreement are tae most popular
m tae stadent's writing compositions It can be assumed that types of writing affect a lot on kmds of mistakes In narrative and descriptive writing, mistakes of style appear wita less frequency, but taey appear more in letter writing (8.17%) Mistakes of numbers still keep high proportion(17.35%)), word choice mistake is 13.33%), mistakes of meaning hold 14.54%o, subject-\-erb agreement mistakes stay
at 19.52%! Those are common mistakes in letter writing and the case seems to be similar
in the other two types of writing
In general, negative language transfer from mother tongue into foreign language that is reflected in mistakes analysed is quite enormous Therefore, language teachers play
an important role in helping tae stadent recognize what mistakes they make in writin" Also, from types of mistakes and their
190 JOURNAL OF FOREST SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY NO 3 - 2016
Trang 9frequency, teachers should have proper
effective teaching metaods and strategies to
improve tae stadent's writmg skills Therefore,
the stadent can reduce or avoid mistakes
caused by their mother tongue transfer The
stadent themselves should be actively acquire
and gam language knowledge of all fields such
as words, phrases, clauses, sentences,
grammar, punctaation, style, etc Particularly,
taeir awareness of the difference between tae
two languages is so vital
In short, language teachers not only give
feedback to the stadent on the mistakes they
make during writing process, but they also
need to design more effective writing lessons
for each type of writing basing on such
mistakes In addition, it is very important for
teachers to help tae stadent revise grammar
spots, stractares, pattems, meanmg organizing,
and other language featares during taeir
leaming process The stadent should be
reminded about tae main differences between
source language and target language so as to
avoid their negative language transfer from
mother tongue into English
r v CONCLUSION
ta summary, the data collected and analysed
through 120 writing compositions of three
different types (letter writing-40,
description-40, and nartative-40) helps both teachers and
stadents understand clearly about negative
language transfer or in different words the
influence of mother tongue on acquisition of
writing skills of the 1 ^' year advanced stadents
at VNUF The research results point out that
most of tae stadent's mistakes in their writing
are caused by their negative language transfer
from mother tongue into English Those
mistakes still seem to happen when the
stadent's knowledge of English is limited
because of some different factors such as
geographical featares, age, leaming
moti\'ation, leammg environment, etc The
mistakes collected in terms of word level (noun and verb) are tae most typical witii the highest proportion Moreover, it can be seen taat in each type of writmg, tae number and frequency of mistakes are different
From tae results, tae researcher assumes some guessing conclusions about reasons of tae phenomenon Firstiy, tae first year stadent's knowledge of English is still problematic, especially thefr vocabulary and grammar points are quite little Secondly, tae stadent often have a bad habit of thinking in Vietnamese language then transfer into English Next, English and Vietaamese languages have many different features Moreover, Vietaamese is still used much m English leammg lessons Another reason is taat tae stadent leam English in an unpreferable environment-in Vietaam, not in
an English-speaking country They just gain English and then use English m classroom contexts Lastiy, time spent on their English leammg per week is not sufficient
From the above causes, tae researcher proposes some suggested solutions as follows Firstly, increase vocabulary of the stadent through language skills activities Secodly, stimualate tae leamer express ideas in English
in all classroom activities to build a habit of using English in communicative sitaations For example, teachers should use open-ended questions to ask stadents, or supply some key difficult words before asking them to express ideas Thirdly, teachers should use more English during lectares that boosts up interaction between teacher and stadents, stadents and stadents; increases using English frequency and reduces mistakes Next, encourage stadents to access more English speaking sitaations in their daily lives The next solution is that teachers should apply method of comparing and contrasting between English and Vietaamese properly in writing
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lessons Lastiy, teachers can design exercises
and drills related to mistake recognizing and
cortectmg For example, "peer correcting"
strategy can be a good one to teach m writmg
lessons It can help leamers cortect mistakes
themselves and taen avoid makm such
mistakes in writing
It cannot be denied taat writing skill is very
difficult for most of foreign language leamers
It is affected by both subjective and objective
factors of which the negative language transfer
from motaer tongue into English is pretty
enormous Therefore, both teachers and
stadents should be clearly aware of its
influences m a foreign language acquisition,
the learners can reduce or avoid mistakes
caused by this negative transfer in their
leaming English writmg skill
REFERENCES
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C , Andersen, E., & Krashen, S C , (eds.) Developing
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2 Corder, P The significance of learners' errors
[C] In J Richards (ed.) Error Analysis London:
Longman, 1971
3 James, C (2001) Errors in language learning and use: Exploring error analysis, Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press
4 Kasper, G Pragmatic transfer [J] In Studies in
Second Language Acquisition 8, 3, 1992:203~231
5 Kellerman, E., & Sharwood Smith, M (1986)
Cross-linguistic influence in second language acquisition [M], Oxford: Pergamon
6 Odlin, T (1989) Language transfer: Cross-linguistic influence in language learning, Cambride: Cambride University Press
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(2):189-223
SU^ DICH TIEU ClTC NGON NGlT M E DE SANG CAC BAI V I E T T B E N G ANH CUA SINH VIEN N A M THLf N H A T C H U O N G T R I N H T I E N T I E N
TRUOfNG DAI H O C L A M N G H I E P
Pham Cong Ngoc
ThS Trudng Dai hoc Ldm nghiep
TOM TAT Trong qua trinh hoc ngoai ngii noi chung va tieng Anh noi rieng, nguoi hoc gap phai khong it nhung kho khan
ca yeu to chu quan lan khach quan Mot trong nhirng yeu do la sir dich chuyen ngon ngir tir tieng me de sang tieng Anh Bai viet de cap den nhirng phan tich va mieu ta su anh huong ciia tieng me de trong nhirng bai viet
tieng Anh cua 80 sinh vien nam thu nhit tnrong Dai hoc Lara Nghiep Sir dich truyin thi hien a cac binh dien
tu vimg, cii phap va van ban dugc phan tich tir nhiing bai viet ciia sinh vien it 3 the loai: viet thu, mieu ta va
tran thuat Ket qua dieu tra da chi ra mot so loi pho bien do anh huong (djch chuyen) cua tiing Viet khi sinh vien viet bai bang tieng Anh Trong do, cac loi a khia canh rir vung (danh tir va dong tir) la diln hinh va tieu bieu nhat, the hien nhieu loi sai nhat Ngoai ra, bai vilt ciing chi ra ring, vdi moi mgt thi loai bai khac nhau, s6 loi sinh vien se mac phai la khac nhau Mot so nguyen nhan ca ban ciing duac dua ra Dua tren kit qua va nguyen nhan nay, nghien cuu ciing dua ra mgt s6 dl xuit nhim han chi nhiing anh hucmg tieu cue trong qua trinh hgc viet tieng Anh ciia sinh vien
Tir khoa: Binh dien, dich chuyen ngon ngir, loi, ngoai ngir, phan tich, tieng me de
Reviewer
Receipt of all
Date reviewer
Day decided to sign
Prof.Dr Nguyen Khac Binh 10/3/2016
15/3/2016 22/3/2016
192 JOURNAL OF FOREST SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY NO 3 - 2016