Therefore, in teaching English writing, teachers should let students know that rhetoric norms are culture-specific; and that under the influence of cultural difference, the use of language, the thought pattern and the discourse patterns between English and Chinese are different. Only by enhancing students’ awareness of intercultural difference, will it be likely for students overcome the interference of Chinese discourse patterns and write English composition in accordance with the English discourse pattern rather than Chinese discourse pattern.
4.2 Developing discourse competence through reading
Raimes points out that reading serves as good sources of writing in that reading enables students engage actively in new language and culture[12]. The more they read, the more they become familiar with the vocabulary, idioms, sentence patterns, organizational flow and cultural assumptions of native speakers of the language. Since reading and writing are so interactive with each other in language learning, to develop writing competence will inevitably involve reading. Through reading, students will have a clear idea of what a discourse pattern is, and obtain knowledge of formal schemata. Through extensive reading of different types of writing, students will obtain the knowledge of the organization of different types of writing, such as descriptive type, narrative type, expository type, argumentative type, instructive type, procedural type and so on.
In conclusion, reading extensively is conductive to acquiring knowledge of formal schemata, which is the prerequisite of good writing. For only when students are aware of the discourse pattern of English writing can they follow the pattern while they are writing, so that their English writing will read like an English writing rather than the translation of a Chinese version.
4.3 Introducing contrastive analysis as part of the teaching and learning process
As discussed in the above, the transfer errors appearing in the EFL writing suggest that the learners are confused about the essential differences in those forms or structures between the two languages. Therefore, some information about contrastive studies of the two languages is needed so as to help students to see more clearly some of the problems they encounter. Charles C. Fries, an American linguist, asserts that an effective textbook of a foreign language should be based on scientific descriptions of that language on the one hand, and on appropriate descriptions of the learner’s native language on the other. Lu Shuxiang, a celebrated Chinese scholar and linguist, also remarks that Chinese EFL learners should build up their target language knowledge on the basis of the differences between Chinese and English through comparisons of every detail of the two languages.
Some other proposals are listed in the following:
(1) An English language teacher should be a good model of the target language.
(2) Learners should be encouraged to think in the target language rather than in their native language when writing.
(3) Students should be encouraged to read more in order to familiarize themselves with the correct usage of Standard English.
(4) Students should be encouraged to use the target language as often as possible.
Conclusion
The ability to write in English has commonly been taken as one of the acceptable evidence of proficiency, so writing has always had an important place in English teaching. Nevertheless, for the reasons of one kind or another, English writing teaching has always been a weak point in classroom setting. In spite of the teachers’ efforts (spending hours evaluating students’ compositions), the performance of writing is far from being satisfactory. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary for English teachers to carry out some research in this field so as to work out the solutions to the problem.
This thesis aims to elicit some pedagogical implications for teaching English writing in China from analyzing errors in students’ compositions and the study of language transfer. A learner’s errors provide evidence the system of the language he is using at a particular point of time in the course. “They are very significant to provide the teachers with the evidence how language is learned or acquired”[13]. On the other hand, many studies have suggested that errors in writing have something to do with language transfer. Because while writing, learners’ TL knowledge is believed to interact with their mother tongue, both of which have an influence on the learner’s target language performance, especially at the level of lexis, syntax, and discourse. However, language transfer is a very complex phenomenon. It can be positive as well as negative for it follows certain rules and can be different because of different learners, different native language, different language learning settings or different stages of learning. Based on the theories of Universal Linguistics and Markedness, this thesis illustrates the feasibility of promoting positive language transfer and reducing negative one in the acquisition of second or foreign language.转贴于 酷文网-论文下载中心 http://www.coolwen.net
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