Listening comprehension is an interactive process that involves both bottom-up and top-down processing. It depends on the listener's existing knowledge (schemas) to interpret what is heard. Traditionally, it was viewed as a linear bottom-up process, but it is now understood that both bottom-up and top-down processes interact. Key factors like text function, features, processing load, and oral language features contribute to difficulty. The listening lesson involves pre-listening, listening, and post-listening activities focused on perception or comprehension.

1. Listening
Comprehension
Listening comprehension is a
receptive skill, as opposed to
speaking, which is productive. But
this does not mean it is a passive
skill. Much to the contrary,
listening comprehension is an
interactive process in which
listeners interact with the text, the
tasks and the context external
(situation) and internal
(background knowledge) to them.

2. Listening
Comprehension
Listening
comprehension is
a cognitive
activity in which
listeners, based
on their
schemata,
interpret
whatever they
listen.
An activity
related to the
acquisition of
knowledge
Schema (sing.) –
Schemata (pl.):
Mental scripts or
frames developed
along our lives based
on our experience.

3. Listening
Comprehension
Schema Theory
Listening comprehension used to
be viewed as a process which
involved the decoding of sounds
in a linear fashion, from the
smallest meaningful units
(phonemes) to larger ones.
This approach is known as
bottom-up information
processing mode.

4. Listening Comprehension
Schema Theory
Listening
comprehension
now is thought
of as depending
as much on the
reader as on the
text.
Bottom up and
top-down modes
of information
processing
interact.

5. Listening Comprehension
Social Relationships
Shared Knowledge
Discourse Type
Discourse Structure
Conversational
Mechanisms
Cohesion
Grammar & Lexis
Sounds & Letters
Bottomup
Topdown
Some aspects of discourse depend more on textual
information, as the items at the bottom of the list below.
Others, however, can only be interpreted when the
listeners’ schemata come into play. This is the case of the
elements at the top of the list.

6. Listening
Comprehension
Tasks which typically
involve top-down
processing:
Assign persons, things or
places to categories
Infer cause and effect
Predict outcomes
Infer the topic
Infer missing details
Bottomup
Topdown
Tasks which
typically involve
bottom-up
processing:
Recognize discourse
transitions
Identify familiar
lexical items
Segment stream of
speech into
constituents
Identify information
focus (stress)
Identify the function
of intonation
Anderson & Lynch (1988)

7. There are some key
factors which
interact to
contribute to the
difficulty of
Listening. Among
them are text
function, text
features, processing
load, and some of
the features of oral
language.

8. Key Factors
Main Text Function
Transactional
Typical tasks focusing on the
transactional content of a
message:
Identify key information
Identify specific facts or details
Identify sequence of series of events
Carry out tasks (label, select, draw,
fill in forms, etc)
The main purpose of transactional
language is to communicate information
E.g.: a lecture

9. Key Factors
Main Text Function
Typical tasks focusing on
interactional information:
Identify markers of social distance
Identify moments for phatic
responses
Identify illocutionary intentions
Interactional
The main purpose of interactional
language is to establish social
relationship.
E.g.: small talk

10. Key Factors
Main Text Features:
Information organization
Topic
Amount of inferencing required and
amount of reference and reduced forms
employed.
Explicitness
Topic complexity and familiarity of the
listener with the topic
Logical structuring of ideas

11. Key Factors
Main Text Features:
Genre
Register
Sermons, chats, jokes etc.
Intimate, casual or formal language.
Text Type
Narratives, descriptions, explanations etc

12. Key Factors
Awareness of the Features of Oral Language
Colloquial vocabulary
Information staging
Unnecessary repetition of informationRedundancy
Incomplete sentences
Importance of shared knowledge
It’s very nice that road up through
Skipton to the Dales
Discourse markers You know, you see, anyway

13. Key Factors
Processing Load
Length of passage
Rate of delivery How fast the speaker delivers the message
Visibility of the speaker
Other environmental clues
Acoustic environment
E.g.: visual support
E.g.: External noise, static on the
phone line.
E.g.: expression, gestures,
proximity

14. The Listening Lesson
Pre-listening
The opening of a listening
lesson containing schema
building tasks which focus on
motivation and the provision of
contextual information.

15. The Listening Lesson
Listening
Listening for perception lessons focus on features of
connected speech, such as reduced forms, stress and
rhythm or on the identification of grammatical, lexical or
functional items.
For Perception
The listening lesson can be aimed at
perception or at comprehension.
Perception tasks are typically bottom-up,
whereas comprehension tasks integrate
bottom-up and top-down modes of
perception.

16. The Listening Lesson
Preset Questions can give the listening activity a clear purpose
Extensive Listening – Listening to longer texts just once in order to
answer general questions on context or attitude.
For Comprehension
Intensive Listening – Listening more than once to adjust to pitch, speed,
voice quality, accent of the speaker. The aim is often to deal with detailed
comprehension questions.

17. The Listening Lesson
Post-Listening
As a wrap-up to the Listening
lesson, features of the text can
serve as a starting point for
follow-up activities on
speaking, writing or language
analysis (identification of lexical
segmentation, functional
language, etc.).