Posted on by Dr James Shea · 1 Comment

Why teachers can play classical music in lessons without creating the split attention effect

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Music has long been recognized for its potential to enhance learning environments and cognitive processes. Teachers often incorporate music into their lessons to create a conducive atmosphere for students to focus, engage, and retain information. Classical music, in particular, is a popular choice among teachers due to its calming and stimulating effects on the brain. However, when it comes to playing music with singing during lessons, the dynamics change. An up to the minute study by Sankaran et al. (2024) sheds light on the neural processing of music and speech in the human auditory cortex, providing insights into why teachers may prefer classical music over vocal music in schools for extended writing.

The research conducted by Sankaran et al. delves into how the brain encodes different aspects of melody, such as pitch, pitch-change, and expectation, while listening to Western musical phrases. The study involved recording neurophysiological activity directly from the human auditory cortex using high-density arrays placed over the lateral surface of the cortex. The findings revealed that music-responsive cortical sites, primarily in the bilateral superior temporal gyrus (STG), showed significant responses to music compared to a silent baseline period. This suggests that the brain processes music in a specialised manner, with distinct neural populations encoding various melodic features thus removing the split attention effect.

One key aspect highlighted in the study is the difference in neural responses to music and speech stimuli. While certain regions in the STG selectively respond to music over other sounds like speech, the encoding of higher-order sequence structures in music plays a crucial role in this selectivity. The brain’s sensitivity to the unique acoustic structure of music, particularly in terms of spectral and temporal modulation patterns, influences how music is processed and perceived. This distinction in neural processing between music and speech raises important considerations for teachers when choosing the type of music to play during lessons if they wish to reduce the chance of creating a split attention effect during their lesson.

Classical music, known for its instrumental compositions and lack of vocal lyrics (operatic music aside), offers a rich auditory experience that can positively impact cognitive functions such as focus, memory, and mood. The absence of lyrics in classical music eliminates potential distractions leading to split attention that may arise from processing verbal information while trying to concentrate on academic tasks. Additionally, the complex and structured nature of classical music can enhance cognitive processing and creative thinking, making it an ideal background accompaniment for extended writing (or artwork) during lessons.

On the other hand, music with singing introduces an additional layer of complexity to the auditory experience. The presence of lyrics in vocal music requires the brain to simultaneously process verbal content and musical elements, which can divide attention and potentially interfere with cognitive tasks. The study by Sankaran et al. suggests that the neural processing of speech and music with lyrics may engage overlapping neural circuits, leading to a different cognitive response compared to instrumental music.

In conclusion, the research on the neural encoding of melody in the human auditory cortex provides valuable insights into why teachers may choose classical music over vocal music during lessons. By understanding how the brain processes different types of music, teachers can make informed decisions about the auditory environment in lessons to optimise student learning and engagement. Classical music, with its instrumental compositions and cognitive benefits, remains a preferred choice for creating a conducive learning atmosphere, while music containing singing may introduce additional cognitive demands that could potentially deliver a split attention effect.

This is a blog of the paper Narayan Sankaran et al. (2024), Encoding of melody in the human auditory cortex. Sci. Adv. 10, pp. 1-16. 10.1126/sciadv.adk0010

Posted on by Dr James Shea

Empowering EFL Learners with Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL)

Beyond the paywall blogs seek to enable teachers to access more research based content which is often limited in access. If you have access, you can read this paper on MALLs here .

Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL) apps offer a transformative approach to enhancing English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ speaking skills. A recent study emphasizes the significance of MALL apps in promoting interactive speaking activities and self-regulation among EFL learners. As secondary teachers in England with pupils having English as a second language, integrating MALL apps can revolutionize language learning experiences.

To maximize the benefits of MALL apps, teachers should encourage students to engage with the app outside class and monitor their progress. By doing so, teachers can create a dynamic learning environment that fosters autonomy and self-directed learning habits among students. Providing training on how to effectively use the app for language learning purposes is crucial. This empowers students to leverage the app’s affordances and personalize their learning journey.

Supplementary materials play a vital role in enriching the learning process. By incorporating additional interactive speaking activities and relevant materials within the app, teachers can make learning more engaging and challenging for students. Moreover, addressing the availability of premium modes and necessary affordances within the app is essential to ensure all students have equal access to resources.

Consistency in coursebook utilization and task design is key to fostering a fair learning environment for all students. Providing equitable mediation and access to resources related to the coursebook can level the playing field and support students of varying proficiency levels. By maintaining fairness in treatment and offering additional support where needed, teachers can empower EFL learners to excel in their language learning journey.

In conclusion, the integration of MALL apps presents a wealth of opportunities for secondary teachers in England to enhance EFL learners’ speaking skills and promote autonomous learning. By embracing technology, providing training, and ensuring fairness in treatment, teachers can create a supportive environment where all students can thriv

This is an blog summarising the paper : Hwang G.-J., Rahimi M. & Fathi J., Enhancing EFL learners’ speaking skills, foreign language enjoyment, and language-specific grit utilising the affordances of a MALL app: A microgenetic perspective, Computers & Education (2024), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2024.105015.

Posted on by Dr James Shea

What Cognitive Load Theory needs to consider: not all effort is the same

The application of Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) to teaching and learning premises on quite a straightforward idea: there’s an intrinsic difficulty to learning tasks, often made harder by extraneous load, whether that’s a cluttered slide deck with no dual coding or insufficient worked examples. Clean up the learning event and you can enable all pupils to access the intrinsic learning more efficiently. As the heading of standard 2 says in the Core Content Framework (CCF) for all new teachers, “How [all] Pupils Learn”. Only, it seems, that’s not how all pupils learn. Because learning something new actually takes effort to pay attention. And effort, it seems, is not the singular thing that many seem to think it is.

A new (2024) paper out has targeted this limited understanding of ‘effort’. It is open access and you can read it for yourself here. But it has implications for teachers and how we think about learning so it is important for us to look at their key findings.

The authors divide effort into three key areas.

Effort required by the complexity of the task.

The harder it is, the more effort. We know a lot about this. Not enough difficulty and we become apathetic and demotivated. Too much difficulty and we get disillusioned. This is the area CLT is focused on. Let’s enable pupils to tackle more difficult tasks by reducing the extraneous load and improving their ability to tackle things through worked examples and well designed dual coding.

Effort required to focus (including how much you are averse to focusing on it!)

The continuous focus a task demands is not related to its difficulty. You could be having to complete a large spreadsheet using very similar tasks over and over. Copy and pasting and calculating. It requires focus, but it’s not hard. In fact it’s quite boring. Boring, it seems, requires more effort. It’s painful to have to focus when something is boring. I think we can all think of examples of this one!

Motivational effort

Generally, students are ready to allocate effort if they are motivated. These can be extrinsically motivated via deferred gratification (e.g. qualifications and monetary rewards) and intrinsically motivated such as through epistemic curiosity or prior positive experiences. However, students can also not be motivated by deferred gratification. ImPact’s latest report on pupil absence suggests persistently absent pupils are less motivated by deferred gratification and that a sense of belonging could be more powerful in providing motivation.

To put this into teacher terms and get an understanding of how all 3 types affect a single task with a consistent intrinsic load, let us think about the act of marking and assessment.

To assess a work against criteria, you have to conceptually hold the entire work in your head. This can be quite difficult for longer extended writing pieces with large amounts of information. You also have to have the subject knowledge to assess it whether for subject content or for spelling and grammar. There is an innate and intrinsic difficulty to assessment (sometimes made unnecessarily harder by illegible handwriting and no quiet working space to concentrate on the marking!)

To mark work, you have to focus. That’s actually quite hard for many who have to assess. To mark for one hour takes focus and concentration. It’s tiring and sometimes you are too tired to mark. Sometimes you have to mark huge amounts like during mock examinations or when you are working as an examiner and you are grinding through endless similar answers over and over.

And that leads us to motivation. Remember the days of triple marking and multiple colour pens? Of ‘Verbal Feedback Given’ stamps? Or even today’s double and triple mock examinations where schools are trying to wring extra points out of pupils via exam practice. You might not always be that motivated to mark these. You might feel this should be outsourced (as some schools do) and that a third set of mocks is not spending your time well. You may well really dislike marking, which may be viewed as a tax on your ‘free’ time. Many polls of teachers find this one of the least liked areas of teaching. It’s no secret exam boards struggle to recruit examiners.

And so it’s not enough just to think about the difficulty of marking. You have to think about the need to focus during the act of marking and the motivation needed to do your marking. It’s why we do things like whole class feedback instead of marking whole sets of books. Marking whole sets of books with detailed annotation can require lots of effort even though it is not actually hard to do.

Now reflect on effort in your lessons – the same principles around effort applies to students. We need to think not just about the first area of effort which CLT attempts to optimise, but also the other two areas of focus and motivation. A group of trust leaders told Jon Severs of the TES that a more diverse curriculum with less content to cover (to summarise his meeting with them) might mean students can focus on English and maths more effectively because they have other subjects which they really, and I mean really, enjoy, but more importantly also make them feel part of the school and motivated to enjoy school. We have to see school not just made up of tiny episodes of teaching and learning which all pupils experience in the same way, but as a ‘whole’ school experience for a diverse range of learners who need to be able to generate the three types of effort needed to enjoy and succeed during their time in school.