Students can transfer various skills between their first and second languages, including sensory, auditory, writing system comprehension strategies, study skills, attitudes, and knowledge about language. They can draw on skills and understanding from their first language when learning a second due to a shared underlying proficiency. Research found that initial skills in one language can influence skills learned in the other language, supporting both language-specific and language-independent transfer between languages. For ELL students, the likelihood of language transfer increases when connections are made between both languages and the student's personal experiences and cultural knowledge base.

1. PRINCIPLES OF LANGUAGE TRANSFER
*What kind of transfer can be expected from the first language to the second? Students can
transfer sensorimotor skills (eye–hand coordination, fine-muscle control, spatial and directional
skills, visual perception and memory); auditory skills (auditory perception, memory,
discrimination, and sequencing); common features of writing systems (alphabets, punctuation
rules); comprehension strategies (finding the main idea, inferring, predicting, use of cuing
systems); study skills (taking notes, using reference sources); habits and attitudes (self-esteem,
task persistence, focus) (Cloud et al., 2000); (speech–print relationships; concepts such as
syllable, word, sentence, paragraph); and knowledge about the reading process.
Horwitz, Elaine K.(2nd Edition) .Becoming a Language Teacher.
*Students can draw on the set of skills and metalinguistic understanding they have gained from
their heritage language when working in another language because both languages are working
out from a central operating system known as the Common Underlying Proficiency (CUP). This
means that the development of either language will have a beneficial effect on the other because
of the transfer that takes place.
Eckman, F. BilingualPrinciples.com. Teaching for Transfer.
*Children in the English-only intervention condition, initial Spanish receptive vocabulary and
elision skills moderated the impact of the intervention on English receptive vocabulary and
elision skills at posttest, respectively. For children in the transitional intervention condition,
initial English definitional vocabulary and elision skills moderated the impact of the intervention
on Spanish definitional vocabulary and elision skills at posttest, respectively. Results for the
vocabulary interactions supported the notion of transfer of specific linguistic information

2. across languages, whereas results for the elision interaction for the English-only intervention
group comparisons supported language-independent transfer. Results for the elision interaction
for the transitional intervention group comparisons supported both language-independent
and language-specific transfer.
Goodrich, Marc. Lonigan, Christopher. Farver, JoAnn (2013 May) Journal of Educational
Psychology. 105(2), 414-426.
ELL’s are going to transfer language based on their sphere of influences. Another words their
personal knowledge base made up of personal experiences, influences of family and friends,
knowledge drawn from cultural and real life observations. The more relevance the ELL can see
between the relation to both languages and their knowledge base the higher the likely hood of
language transfer. It is up to me as an educator to provide that relateability.