The Serial Position Effect: What EMI Teachers Need to Know
Willy A Renandya, 2 May 2025
If you’ve noticed that students tend to remember what you said at the start and end of a lesson, but often forget the material in the middle, causing you to repeat it more than once, you’re not alone. This common pattern is explained by a well-established concept in psychology known as the serial position effect. It simply means that people tend to remember the first and last items in a sequence better than those in the middle.
For teachers working in English-Medium Instruction (EMI) or content-based English classrooms across Asia, this effect is more than just an interesting theory. It has real implications for how students process, comprehend, retain, and apply what you teach. This is especially true when they are still at the lower end of the proficiency scale.
Understanding this effect can help you make simple but powerful changes to your lesson planning and delivery. In this post, we’ll explore what the serial position effect is, why it matters so much in EMI settings, and how you can reduce its negative impact in your classroom.
What Is the Serial Position Effect?
The serial position effect is a concept from cognitive psychology that explains how people tend to remember items at the beginning and end of a list better than those in the middle.
It consists of two parts:
- Primacy effect: Items presented at the start of a sequence are often remembered well because they are rehearsed and encoded into long-term memory.
- Recency effect: Items presented at the end of a sequence are remembered better because they remain in short-term memory at the time of recall.
In the context of classroom instruction, your “list” isn’t necessarily a list of words. It could be a sequence of ideas, examples, slides, or even parts of your lesson.
This means students are more likely to remember what you say during the introduction and conclusion, and more likely to forget the middle portion where much of the heavy lifting in content learning usually takes place.
Why EMI Teachers Should Pay Attention
In EMI classrooms across Asia, whether in Japan, South Korea, China, Thailand, or elsewhere, students face a dual learning task. They must understand academic content while also processing that content in English, which for many is not their first language. This increases what is known as cognitive load.
Cognitive load refers to the total amount of mental effort being used in working memory. When students are processing new vocabulary, unfamiliar syntax, and complex concepts all at once, they can quickly become overloaded. This is particularly true in the middle of a lesson, when new concepts, technical terms, and abstract ideas are often introduced.
As a result, the middle section of your lesson—the part most vulnerable to the serial position effect—is also the part where students are most likely to struggle. If teachers don’t account for this, important content may be poorly understood or quickly forgotten.
How Can Teachers Reduce the Negative Effects?
The good news is that there are practical strategies you can use to make your lessons more “memory-friendly.” These methods don’t require you to redesign your entire curriculum. Instead, small adjustments to how and when you present material can have a big impact.
1. Chunk Your Content into Mini-Lessons
One of the most effective ways to counter the serial position effect is to break your lesson into smaller parts. Each “chunk” can function like a mini-lesson with its own clear beginning, middle, and end.
For example, instead of presenting 30 minutes of content on the topic of climate change, divide the lesson into three smaller parts: causes, effects, and solutions. After each part, pause to reflect, review, or engage students in a short activity.
This creates multiple opportunities for students to benefit from both the primacy and recency effects within a single class period.
2. Use Retrieval Practice in the Middle of the Lesson
To help students retain key ideas from the central portion of your lesson, add in retrieval practice—simple activities that encourage them to recall and apply what they’ve just learned.
This could be as short as a two-minute quiz, a quick “turn and talk” task, or a group challenge to summarize the main idea. These activities help transfer information from working memory to long-term memory and keep students engaged at the point when their attention is likely fading.
Retrieval practice is especially useful in EMI settings because it encourages language use as well as content recall, reinforcing both simultaneously.
3. Reinforce Key Ideas Visually
Middle sections of lessons often contain the densest content. To support understanding and memory, use visual aids such as diagrams, timelines, mind maps, and flowcharts.
For example, if you’re teaching a biology lesson on the water cycle, don’t just explain it verbally. Show a labeled diagram and walk through each stage step by step. Students learning in a second language benefit greatly from visual supports, which act as memory anchors and reduce dependence on language alone.
These visuals can also be referred to in later parts of the lesson, strengthening memory through repetition and association.
4. Revisit and Reframe Key Concepts at the End
Don’t assume students have fully understood or remembered everything you covered just because you’ve reached the end of your lesson. Use your conclusion time wisely to reinforce central ideas.
You might ask students to summarize what they’ve learned in one sentence, complete a quick exit ticket, or draw a simple concept map. These tasks help cement ideas in long-term memory and offer a chance to check understanding.
Even better, bring those ideas back in the next class or in future assignments. This kind of spaced repetition improves long-term retention and reduces the likelihood that students will forget what was covered mid-lesson.
5. Add Movement and Variety to Re-Energize
Sometimes, all students need to overcome the mental slump in the middle of a lesson is a change of pace. A short, interactive activity can refresh attention and make the middle of the lesson more memorable.
This might involve students getting up to move around (e.g., walking to a partner, voting with their feet, or organizing content on a wall), working in groups, or even just switching tasks. Even brief movement can recharge focus and improve engagement.
These changes are especially useful in Asian classrooms, where lessons often lean heavily on lecture-based instruction. Small doses of activity-based learning can keep students alert and make difficult content more accessible.
The infographics below visually depicts the 5 techniques above
Conclusion
The serial position effect is a powerful reminder that when we teach something can be just as important as what we teach. As EMI and content-based teachers, we already ask a lot of our students i.e., challenging them to learn science, history, math, or literature in a language they are still learning.
By understanding and applying insights from memory research, we can make our teaching more effective and our classrooms more supportive. A few small adjustments, e.g., breaking lessons into chunks, adding visuals, reviewing key points, and varying the pace, can help ensure that important content doesn’t get lost in the middle.
Good teaching isn’t just about content coverage—it’s about helping students remember, understand, and apply what they’ve learned. Planning with memory in mind is a great place to start.
More readings
Why reading matters more than writing in AI-enhanced L2 classrooms