Multimedia learning in a second language: A cognitive load perspective

What can be done to help college students who are not native speakers of English learn from computer-based lessons that are presented in English? To help students access the meaning of spoken words in a slow-paced 16-minute narration about wildlife in Antarctica, a representational video was added that showed the scenes and animals being described in the narration (Experiment 1). Adding video resulted in improved performance of non-native English speakers on a comprehension test (d=0.63), perhaps because the video improved access to word meaning without creating extraneous cognitive load. To help students perceive the spoken words in a fast-paced 9-minute narrated video about chemical reactions, concurrent on-screen captions were added (Experiment 2). Adding on-screen captions did not improve performance by non-native English speakers on comprehension tests, perhaps because learners did not have available capacity to take advantage of the captions. Implications for cognitive load theory are discussed.