The advantages of listening to academic content in a second language may be outweighed by disadvantages: A cognitive load theory approach
Corresponding Author
Stéphanie Roussel
Languages Department, LACES (Culture, Education & Society Research Center), University of Bordeaux, Pessac, France
Correspondence should be addressed to Stéphanie Roussel, Languages Department, LACES (Culture, Education & Society Research Center), University of Bordeaux, 16 avenue Léon Duguit, 33608 Pessac, France (email: [email protected]).
Contribution: Conceptualization (equal), Data curation (equal), Formal analysis (equal), Methodology (equal), Supervision (equal), Validation (equal), Visualization (equal), Writing - original draft (equal), Writing - review & editing (equal)
Search for more papers by this authorAndré Tricot
Laboratoire Epsylon – Dynamique des Capacités Humaines et des Conduites de Santé (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3), CNRS, Montpellier Cedex 5, France
Contribution: Conceptualization (equal), Data curation (equal), Formal analysis (equal), Methodology (equal), Supervision (equal), Validation (equal), Visualization (equal), Writing - original draft (equal), Writing - review & editing (equal)
Search for more papers by this authorJohn Sweller
School of Education, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Contribution: Conceptualization (equal), Data curation (equal), Formal analysis (equal), Methodology (equal), Supervision (equal), Validation (equal), Visualization (equal), Writing - original draft (equal), Writing - review & editing (equal)
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Stéphanie Roussel
Languages Department, LACES (Culture, Education & Society Research Center), University of Bordeaux, Pessac, France
Correspondence should be addressed to Stéphanie Roussel, Languages Department, LACES (Culture, Education & Society Research Center), University of Bordeaux, 16 avenue Léon Duguit, 33608 Pessac, France (email: [email protected]).
Contribution: Conceptualization (equal), Data curation (equal), Formal analysis (equal), Methodology (equal), Supervision (equal), Validation (equal), Visualization (equal), Writing - original draft (equal), Writing - review & editing (equal)
Search for more papers by this authorAndré Tricot
Laboratoire Epsylon – Dynamique des Capacités Humaines et des Conduites de Santé (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3), CNRS, Montpellier Cedex 5, France
Contribution: Conceptualization (equal), Data curation (equal), Formal analysis (equal), Methodology (equal), Supervision (equal), Validation (equal), Visualization (equal), Writing - original draft (equal), Writing - review & editing (equal)
Search for more papers by this authorJohn Sweller
School of Education, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Contribution: Conceptualization (equal), Data curation (equal), Formal analysis (equal), Methodology (equal), Supervision (equal), Validation (equal), Visualization (equal), Writing - original draft (equal), Writing - review & editing (equal)
Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
Background
It is frequently implicitly assumed that advantages in language acquisition when learning content through a second language exceed the disadvantages of reduced content acquisition.
Aims
Based on cognitive load theory, that assumption was tested experimentally. The theory is concerned with techniques for reducing extraneous working memory load in order to facilitate learning.
Materials
This study used a listening task.
Methods
French students of Law and Political Science listened to an audio document about the European Court of Humans Rights under one of four experimental conditions: in their native language (French) twice; in a second language (German) twice; first in French, then in German; or first in German then in French. After the listening task, we tested students’ understanding of both the German language and of the academic content.
Results
Our results indicated that listening to the content in French before listening to it in a second language was beneficial for both content and language learning. In contrast, listening to content in a second language not only depressed content acquisition as is to be expected, but also depressed language acquisition. We discuss the relevance of cognitive load theory to frame learning tasks aimed at teaching content through a second language.
Conflicts of interest
All authors declare no conflict of interest.
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