Managing cognitive load for EAL – and all – students

Have you ever watched students who speak English as an additional language (EAL) struggling with course materials and assessment tasks but did not know how best to support them? Would you like to make your classes more accessible for EAL students but don’t want to give anyone an “unfair advantage”?

Reducing extraneous cognitive load is an effective way to help EAL students, while benefiting all students.

What is cognitive load?

Developed by the Australian educational psychologist John Sweller, cognitive load theory (CLT) explores how information can be presented in ways that best enable students to learn. CLT posits that:

• All teaching imposes a cognitive load on working memory;
• Working memory is limited when dealing with new information;
• Overloading working memory compromises students’ abilities to process information and move it to long-term memory – thus inhibiting learning.

CLT identifies two broad categories of cognitive load.

• Intrinsic cognitive load refers to how difficult a subject is to understand, irrespective of how it might be taught. The more elements that need to be processed simultaneously, the harder a subject is to understand and learn.
• Extraneous cognitive load refers to the burden on working memory imposed by “non-optimal” instructional design, as well as by aspects of the learner and/or learning environment. As with intrinsic cognitive load, the more elements that need to be simultaneously processed, the greater the cognitive load.

The main goal of CLT is to explore instructional techniques that reduce extraneous cognitive load, so that students’ working memories are better able to manage intrinsic cognitive load. Thus, CLT does not aim to trivialise your course content but rather to help students engage more fully with its inherent complexity.

Why do EAL students carry additional cognitive load?

EAL students often carry a higher extraneous cognitive load than their native English-speaking classmates because engaging with new information in a foreign language requires simultaneous processing not only of the subject matter at hand but also of the language in which it is presented.

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When dealing with unfamiliar uses of English, many EAL students rely on mental translation, which slows down cognitive processing. When specialised vocabulary and local accents are not yet embedded in students’ long-term memories, these impose a burden on working memory.

“Language-rich” courses and pedagogical approaches that require listening and discussion – such as active and problem-based learning – are particularly challenging when working across languages.

Four tried-and-true techniques for reducing cognitive load

CLT researchers have identified many pedagogical techniques for reducing extraneous cognitive load, which can help both EAL and native English-speaking students.

1. Worked examples and partially completed problems

The most widely researched CLT-informed teaching technique involves providing students with well-designed worked examples that show them how to solve types of problems. Presenting worked examples alongside partially completed problems can reduce extraneous cognitive load even further.

Although typically associated with mathematics and other highly structured subjects, both worked examples and partially completed problems, which students are invited to complete, can also be used effectively in less-structured subject areas, including literature and art.

2. Chunking

Because cognitive load increases with the number of elements that need to be processed simultaneously, you can reduce extraneous cognitive load by dividing complex information into manageable sets or “chunks”. Ideally, these chunks comprise about four elements and are organised according to an identifiable underlying logic.

By chunking instructional material, you can help students:

• Recognise the relationship(s) between specific pieces of information;
• More readily understand, access and retrieve information.

3. Graphic organisers

Graphic organisers are visual learning tools in which words are arranged spatially (such as in a tree diagram, concept map or flow chart) to show the relationships between concepts. They might be prepared by instructors or students, or instructors can give students partially completed graphic organisers to help with note-taking.

Like chunking, graphic organisers clarify and draw attention to key concepts, which helps students make sense of complex information.

Like partially completed problems, partially completed graphic organisers afford students the “encoding benefits” of actively generating their own notes without becoming overwhelmed.

Standardised diagram types can be used repeatedly with different content to highlight particular types of relationships between concepts, thus helping students to recognise organisational patterns and supporting both comprehension and recall.

4. Linguistic scaffolding

Linguistic scaffolding involves temporarily making the language used to present course material more accessible, so that students are better able to make meaning from it.

Linguistic scaffolding can take forms such as:

• Simplified vocabulary;
• A glossary (or hyperlinks to definitions), Latin root words, visual representations, sample sentences and translations;
• Text-to-speech (TTS) readers, which can help students with pronunciation of unfamiliar English words;
• Speaking (or writing) frames to help students formulate their own ideas in English;
• Repetition, expansion or reformulation of students’ comments or questions, which provides modelling of standard English vocabulary and grammar.

Research tells us that those students who are most in need of support often have difficulty accessing that help. But by embedding CLT-informed supports within your course design, you can increase its accessibility to both EAL and native English-speaking students.

Kate Power is a senior lecturer in the School of Business at the University of Queensland

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