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A Research on the Instruction of Complex Sentence Structures for English Majors from the Perspective of Cognitive Load Theory

Author(s)

Xue Hu

Affiliation(s)

School of Foreign Languages, Liaocheng University, Liaocheng, Shandong, China

Abstract

Complex sentence structures, as a core component of the English language system, are crucial for English major students to achieve precise language expression, enhance comprehensive language application skills and academic literacy. They are also the main bottleneck that most English major students encounter in the improvement of various language skills, including listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation. The teaching effect of complex sentence structures directly affects the quality of English major talent cultivation. The cognitive load theory, as an important theory in educational psychology, focuses on the limitations of human cognitive processing and the laws of resource allocation, providing a scientific theoretical perspective and practical guidance for solving difficult problems in the teaching of complex sentence structures and optimizing teaching design. This paper takes English major students as the research object, combines the requirements of the English major teaching syllabus and the cognitive development characteristics of students, and uses research methods such as literature analysis and logical induction to systematically analyze the cognitive load imbalance problems existing in the current teaching of complex sentence structures in English major, deeply explore the causes behind them at the levels of teaching content, teaching methods, and students' cognitive foundation, and based on the core viewpoints of the cognitive load theory, propose targeted teaching optimization strategies, aiming to reasonably allocate cognitive load, reduce ineffective cognitive load, and enhance effective cognitive load, effectively improve the effectiveness of teaching complex sentence structures in English major, further provide certain theoretical support and operational practical references for the teaching reform and mode innovation of complex sentence structures in English major, and help English major students break through the bottleneck of complex sentence learning and comprehensively enhance their language comprehensive application abilities.

Keywords

Cognitive Load Theory; English Majors; Complex Sentences; English Language Teaching

References

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