| As essential language skills,listening and speaking have always been indispensable parts of English teaching.However,in teaching practice,many English teachers still have problems in teaching listening and speaking.Especially,for teachers who teach in ethnic minority areas,they face a more complex situation,the most important of which is the diverse background languages of ethnic minority students.For example,for Yunnan Hani students,they have already acquired the Hani language and Mandarin,and English is a third language for them.Given that English is different from both the Hani language and Mandarin to some extent,it becomes more difficult for teachers to teach English listening and speaking.In addition,students play a key role in learning,and their perceptions are significant for the improvement of teaching.Therefore,there is an urgent need for teachers to understand the cognitive situation of students in English listening-speaking class.Based on this,cognitive load theory(CLT),focusing on the cognitive state of learners,provides a novel and systematic theoretical framework for teachers to understand and analyze students’ cognitive load.Hence,this study primarily aims to investigate the distribution and influencing factors of cognitive load of Yunnan Hani junior high school students in English listening-speaking class.Specifically,three research questions are explored: 1)What is the current situation of the cognitive load of Yunnan Hani junior high school students in English listening-speaking class? Specifically,what is their total cognitive load(TCL),intrinsic cognitive load(ICL),extraneous cognitive load(ECL)and germane cognitive load(GCL)respectively? 2)What is the cognitive load situation of students at each grade level? Is there a difference in the cognitive load of students at different grade levels? 3)What factors influence the cognitive load of students in English listening-speaking class?A total of 171 Hani students from two public junior high schools in Honghe Hani-Yi Autonomous Prefecture,Yunnan Province participated in this study.Three research instruments were employed,namely,questionnaire,classroom observation and semi-structured interview.The data were analyzed through SPSS,including descriptive analysis,frequency analysis,one-way analysis of variance(one-way ANOVA)and post hoc multiple comparisons.Results showed that,the cognitive load situation of Yunnan Hani junior high school students in English listening-speaking class can be concluded as follows:1)generally,the TCL of students is at a lower-middle level,with a lower-middle level of ICL and ECL and an upper-middle level of GCL;2)specifically,for junior 1 and junior 2students,their ICL and ECL are at a lower-middle level,and their GCL is at an upper-middle level;for junior 3 students,their ICL and GCL are at an upper-middle level,and their ECL is at a lower-middle level;3)significant differences in ICL can be found between junior 1 and junior 3 students;significant differences in ECL can be found not only between junior 1 and junior 2 students but also between junior 1 and junior 3 students.Factors affecting Yunnan Hani junior high school students’ cognitive load in English listening-speaking class include: 1)environmental factors of teaching method,teaching speed,teaching instruction and teaching tool;2)learner factors of learning strategy and mental effort;3)affective factors of interest and confidence;4)linguistic factors of cross-linguistic influence.Based on the above research findings,this study proposed the following pedagogical implications: 1)it is suggested that teachers take students’ grade level into consideration and adjust teaching method and instructional design based on their different cognitive load situations;2)it is recommended that teachers try to guide students to think in English to avoid the load caused by translation;3)it is suggested that teachers teach students more learning strategies to enhance students’ GCL. |
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