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A Study of L1 Negative Transfer in Junior High EFL Writing Based on Error Analysis

Author(s)

Xiaoyu Sun, Fengying Wu

Affiliation(s)

Lingnan Normal University, Zhanjiang, Guangdong, China

Abstract

Negative transfer of the mother tongue (L1) is a persistent obstacle in junior high school English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing. Grounded in Odlin's (1989) theory of language transfer and adopting Corder's (1967) Error Analysis framework, this study investigates the patterns and causes of L1-induced errors in the English writing of 45 ninth-grade students from Zhanjiang No. 8 Middle School. Through systematic error identification, classification, and descriptive statistical analysis, the study categorizes errors at lexical, grammatical, and discourse levels. Quantitative results reveal that tense errors (21.03%) and spelling errors (16.67%) are the two most frequent types, collectively accounting for over one-third of all identified errors, with tense errors being the most prominent. The analysis attributes these dominant error patterns to three underlying causes: cross-linguistic structural asymmetries between Chinese and English (e.g., the absence of inflectional morphology and tense markers in Chinese), students' insufficient English input and strong L1 thinking sets, and inadequate explicit contrastive instruction in current teaching practice. Pedagogically, the study proposes four targeted strategies—contrastive teaching, intensive error-correction drills, thematic corpus accumulation, and individualized feedback—to mitigate L1 interference and enhance the quality of junior high school writing instruction.

Keywords

Negative Transfer; Error Analysis; EFL Writing; Junior High School; Teaching Strategies

References

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