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[.]
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 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 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 JOURNAL OF FOREST SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY NO 3-2016 183 Other areas pointed 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 184 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 ILTL and NL^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 JOURNAL OF FOREST SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY NO - 2016 Other areas feature 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 -tae 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 JOURNAL OF FOREST SCIENCE ANT) TECHNOLOGY NO - 2016 185 Other areas effectiveness 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 186 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 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 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 JOURNAL OF FOREST SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY NO - 2016 Other areas language 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 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 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 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) JOURNAL OF FOREST SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY NO - 2016 187 Other areas Subject 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 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 (OpinionSize-Shape-Aged-Colour-Origm-Material) However, not many stadents know tais tip JOURNAL OF FOREST SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY NO 3-2016 Other areas - 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 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 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 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 afiillmeanmg - 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 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 JOURNAL OF FOREST SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY NO - 2016 189 Other areas addressing, 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 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 190 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 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 JOURNAL OF FOREST SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY NO - 2016 Other areas frequency, 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 rv CONCLUSION ta summary, the data collected and analysed through 120 writing compositions of three different types (letter writing-40, description40, 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 ^' 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 JOURNAL OF FOREST SCIENCE 4ND TECHNOLOGY NO - 2016 191 Other areas 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 Beebe, L.M., Takahashi, T., & Uliss-Weltz, R Pragmatic transfer m ESL refusals [C] hi Scarcella, R C , Andersen, E., & Krashen, S C , (eds.) Developing Communicative Competence in a Second Language [A] New York: Newbury House, 1990:55-73 Corder, P The significance of learners' errors [C] In J Richards (ed.) Error Analysis London: Longman, 1971 James, C (2001) Errors in language learning and use: Exploring error analysis, Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press Kasper, G Pragmatic transfer [J] In Studies in Second Language Acquisition 8, 3, 1992:203~231 Kellerman, E., & Sharwood Smith, M (1986) Cross-linguistic influence in second language acquisition [M], Oxford: Pergamon Odlin, T (1989) Language transfer: Crosslinguistic influence in language learning, Cambride: Cambride University Press Richards, J C.& Schmidt, R (2002) Dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistics (3rd ed.), London: Longman Takahashi, S Pragmatic Transferability [J] In Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18, 1996 (2):189-223 \ SU^ DICH TIEU ClTC NGON NGlT M E DE SANG CAC BAI VIET T B E N G ANH CUA SINH VIEN NAM THLf N H A T C H U O N G T R I N H TIEN TIEN TRUOfNG DAI H O C L A M N G H I E P Pham Cong Ngoc ThS Trudng Dai hoc Ldm nghie 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 nhirng yeu 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 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 the loai: viet thu, mieu ta va tran thuat Ket qua dieu tra da chi mot so loi bien anh huong (djch chuyen) cua tiing Viet 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 ring, vdi moi mgt thi loai bai khac nhau, s6 loi sinh vien se mac phai la khac Mot so nguyen nhan ca ban ciing duac dua Dua tren kit qua va nguyen nhan nay, nghien cuu ciing dua mgt s6 dl xuit nhim han chi nhiing anh hucmg tieu cue 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 192 Prof.Dr Nguyen Khac Binh 10/3/2016 15/3/2016 22/3/2016 JOURNAL OF FOREST SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY NO - 2016 ... bai viet ciia sinh vien it the loai: viet thu, mieu ta va tran thuat Ket qua dieu tra da chi mot so loi bien anh huong (djch chuyen) cua tiing Viet sinh vien viet bai bang tieng Anh Trong do,... chung va tieng Anh noi rieng, nguoi hoc gap phai khong it nhung kho khan ca yeu to chu quan lan khach quan Mot nhirng yeu la sir dich chuyen ngon ngir tir tieng me de sang tieng Anh Bai viet de... sang tieng Anh Bai viet de cap den nhirng phan tich va mieu ta su anh huong ciia tieng me de nhirng bai viet tieng Anh cua 80 sinh vien nam thu nhit tnrong Dai hoc Lara Nghiep Sir dich truyin