Cognitive Load of Receptive Skill Activities and Students’ Achievement in Learning English

The main aim of this study was investigating the cognitive load of receptive skills activities of Iranian newly compiled EFL textbook of grade K-11 from the perspective of students. The study also invesigated the role of cogntive load in predicting leaning achviement of English as a school subject. 37 students of K-10 participated in the study. They were asked to judge the cognitive load of the activities of respective skills (listening and reading) of their textbook based on the cognitive load measure with 10 items. The scale measures three components of CL including Intrinsic Load (IL), Germane Load (GL), and Extraneous Load (EL). The result of the study primarily revealed that the general cognitive load of reading activities is significantly higher than that of listening activities. Further analysis showed that the activities of reading skill have significantly higher EL when three types of CL are considered. It was also found that the CLof reading activities is a signficant predictor of learning English as a foreign language and functions as a hinderance to students’ learning achviement

Keywords:

Cognitive load , new textbooks , EFL , receptive skills