Introduction -- Human Cognitive Architecture -- Sensory Memory, Working Memory, and Long-Term Memory -- Cognitive Load: Categories and Measurements -- Cognitive Load Effects -- A Cognitive Perspective of Language Processing -- Research Hypotheses and Research Design -- Expertise Reversal Effect and Teaching EFL Listening Skills (Experiment 1) -- Expertise Reversal Effect: When Years of Active Learning Account for Language Expertise (Experiment 2) -- Expertise Reversal Effect and Teaching EFL Listening Skills to Lower Expertise Learners (Experiment 3) -- Expertise Reversal Effect and Teaching French as a Foreign Language Listening Skills (Experiment 4) -- General Discussion and Conclusion.

This book presents an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the learning and listening skills of a foreign language from the perspectives of cognitive load theory and second language acquisition theories. It explores when and how foreign language listening skills could be curiously improved more effectively by reading than by listening. The results of randomized controlled experiments in the book demonstrate an expertise reversal effect, which calls teachers to adjust instructional approaches to accommodate learners’ expertise level. The book expands the existing language comprehension frameworks by including working memory load as a crucial factor in written or verbal information processing. It also develops cognitive load theory by applying it in a less well-structured subject area—foreign language learning. The book is of interest to postgraduate teachers and learners of a foreign language, instructional designers, educational policy makers, and academic researchers in the fields of learning sciences, curriculum and pedagogy, educational psychology, cognitive load theory, second language acquisition, and foreign language teaching and learning.