A Study On English Reading Teaching In Senior High School Under The Guidance Of Cognitive Load Theory

English reading teaching in senior high school aims at training students’ logical thinking ability,increasing their language and cultural background knowledge and stimulating their reading interest.Students should not only master certain reading skills,but also have the ability to read independently.Teachers and students have also made great efforts in English reading,but the reading level of middle school students is not optimistic at present.On this basis,the authors construct an empirical study of an instructional design to reduce cognitive load in high school English reading by reducing intrinsic cognitive load and extrinsic cognitive load and increasing related cognitive load.First,we explained the concept of cognitive load,the three major classifications of cognitive load,and the factors that affect the generation of cognitive load,and sorted out the results of the application of cognitive load theory to teaching at home and abroad to lay the theoretical support for the opening of this paper.Secondly,we conducted a questionnaire,an English reading level and a self-assessment test on students,and were able to find out that students have a heavy cognitive load when reading,which leads to their performance in reading tests.Based on the above research,the author proposes teaching control strategies such as optimizing the teaching medium,rationalizing the teaching schedule and motivating students to learn,in terms of the amount of learning content,the organization and presentation of learning materials,students’ learning interests,students’ metacognitive level and relevant experience or background knowledge of the materials.Two parallel classes in the senior class of a secondary school in Shaoguan City,Guangdong Province,were used as the research subjects.Focusing on classroom teaching practices,with the help of reading teaching cases,the design was based on increasing effective load,reducing intrinsic load and controlling external load respectively.Finally,after the implementation of the cognitive load theory in the reading classroom,the effect of the reading classroom guided by the cognitive load theory was understood through the analysis of questionnaires and the comparison of pre scores and post scores,combined with interviews and psychological assessments.The results of this study show that the design of high school English reading teaching based on cognitive load theory can reduce students’ psychological stress,stimulate learning motivation,reasonably distribute the cognitive load in reading,and improve learning performance.Therefore,the reform of high school English reading teaching guided by cognitive load theory is effective and feasible.