This paper investigates Chinese learners' interlanguage in their learning and use of English possessives from the psycholinguistic perspective of L1's(Chinese)influence on the target language(English)learning.It examines the acquisition order,the developmental sequences and the speech-processing strategies applied subconsciously by the learners in the whole learning process,with the aim of finding the psycholinguistic rationale that produces the interlanguage.It asserts that the learners'active involvement in the learning process is crucial inasmuch as each learner has a different learning pace and style, which the language teachers should not lose sight of.All this knowledge has strong implications for the improvement of present English language instruction in a Chinese setting.Such knowledge can lead to better-informed attitudes on the part of the EFL teachers and more effective teaching methodologies.
