Top down

Compilation of Top-Dow n, Bottom-Up and Metacognitive Techniques for English 17 (The Teaching of Listening and Reading)
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English 17 ( The Teaching of Listening and Reading)
English 17 ( The Teaching of Listening and Reading)

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Republic of the Philippines
Surigaodel Sur StateUniversity
COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION
Main Campus,Tandag City
Compilation of Top-Down, Bottom-Up and Metacognitive Techniques
English 17
(TheTeachingof ListeningandReading
TTh/5:00PM-8:00 PM
Room No.
Presented and Submitted by:
MR. ANGELITO T. PERA
BSED-III English
Presented and Submitted to:
CATHERINE F. SALOMON,MELL
English Professor
Date and Time Accomplished:
October 13, 2015/12:00 Noon
Academic Year 2015-2016

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Acknowledgment
From the inspirational and immortal lines of Ralph Waldo Emerson “our chief
want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be." Henry Ford “life
is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though
sometimes it is hard to realize this, for the world was built to develop character and we
must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching
onward”. In other words, we strived hardly and religiously to achieve our aims, dreams
and goals in life that we can inspire others to succeed. With sincerest words of thanks
and debt of gratitude:
To Almighty Father, for the faith, wisdom and enlightenment for our lives,
aspirations and dreams,
To my beloved guardian, for the financial and moral assistance and support
through the years,
To my English 17 classmates, for their support, help and assistance for the
success of this compilation,
To Mrs. Catherine F. Salomon for her patience, kindness, encouragements,
love, meaningful and remarkable teachings and pieces of advice,
And to the future readers of this compilation, for their willingness to read and
learn and generosity to share ideas to others,
Again, with deepest, sincerest and warmest words of compliments and
gratefulness to all of you.
The Author

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Introduction
The Teaching of Listening and Reading also known as English 17 is one of
major subjects prescribed in Bachelor of Secondary Education Major in English
curriculum which is guided and focused on listening and reading approaches, methods
and strategies in teaching. Each of the approaches, methods and strategies is very
significant and useful in teaching our students in the future that they will be able to
understand the importance of listening and reading skills in learning English language
effectively and meaningfully.
Furthermore, the teaching of listening and reading helped us to understand
further on the different techniques in developing listening and reading skills and
involved us to the different listening activities and reading exercises that actually
helped and developed our communication and language skills. Learning theories and
concepts of language teaching through listening and reading activities were included
to increase knowledge and understanding in language skills and competencies.
In other words, this compilation in top-down, bottom-up and metacognitve
techniques for developing effective listening and reading skills retrieved from reliable
resources contained specific information on techniques and strategies in language
teaching in response to English 17 (The Teaching of Listening and Reading) that will
help the students in understanding further the significance of language in their daily
activities and experiences. It also encouraged and helped the language teachers to
plan lesson objectives which are appropriate to the students. So, teaching English
language is very significant in understanding and appreciating listening and reading
skills which are important components of language and communication skills.

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The Author

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The Top-down Techniques
Top-down processing of language happens when someone uses background
information to predict the meaning of language they are going to listen to or read.
Rather than relying first on the actual words or sounds (bottom up), they develop
expectations about what they will hear or read, and confirm or reject these as they
listen or read. Top-down processing is thought to be an effective way of processing
language; it makes the most of what the person brings to the situation.
For example:
Asking learners to predict what a newspaper article might be about from the
headline or first sentence will encourage them to use top-down processing on the
article. a reading comprehension learners use their knowledge of thegenre to predict
what will be in the text .
Top-down techniques are listener- based; the listener taps into background
knowledge of the topic, the situation or context, the type of text, and the language.
This background knowledge activates a set of expectations that help the listener to
interpret what is heard and anticipate what will come next. Top-down strategies
include
 listening for the main idea
 predicting
 drawing inferences
 summarizing
Top-down Listening Techniques and Activities
This is an essential skill given that, in a real-life listening situation, even
advanced learners are likely to come across some unknown vocabulary. By using

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their knowledge of context and co-text, they should either be able to guess the
meaning of the unknown word, or understand the general idea without getting
distracted by it. Other examples of common top-down listening activities include
putting a series of pictures or sequence of events in order, listening to conversations
and identifying where they take place, reading information about a topic then listening
to find whether or not the same points are mentioned, or inferring the relationships
between the people involved.
Top-down processing starts from the reader to the listener and It assumes
that the learner brings to the text certain knowledge – of the world, of texts (including
how certain types of conversation typically unfold), and of language. This knowledge is
likely to be useful in understanding a text (whether written or spoken), but it often
needs to be activated, and activities such as discussions, questionnaires, quizzes,
brainstorms, and vocabulary-anticipation can all be used to do this.
For example, when you saw the title of this piece, you probably started thinking
about what it might mean, what the arguments in the piece were likely to be, whether
you wanted to read it, and so on. So assuming you still do want to read it…
References:
Anne Anderson and Tony Lynch (1988). Listening. Oxford University Press
Jack Richards, Designing instructional materials for teaching listening comprehension,
in ‘The Language Teaching Matrix’, Cambridge, 1990
Mary Underwood (1989). Teaching Listening. Longman Penny Ur
(1984), Teaching Listening Comprehension, Cambridge.
Magnus Wilson. Discovery Listening – Improving Perceptual Processing. ELT
Journal Volume 57/4 (October 2003). Catherine Morley, Teacher, Teacher trainer,
Mexico.

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Listening Activities and Techniques for Effective Top-down Processing
In English listening, the content schema must be activated in order for the
learners to access their prior knowledge. Consequently it is our job to use some
classroom activities to help them. First of all, we must assess the students' level of
background knowledge on a particular topic before the students listen to the text. If the
students lack specific content schema, we should provide a remedial lesson on the
topic to bring their level of content schema up to the level where they can better
comprehend the text. Or we revise the teaching materials so that they will not be too
demanding for the students. Furthermore, the teachers can use the information gained
at this time to make specific lesson plans for the remainder of the listening lesson on
that particular topic.
 Activities to Activate Students' Prior Knowledge
To effectively activate the students' prior knowledge, I often use activities in my
listening class and will introduce some of them here in this article.
 Word Association Tasks
This method helps to determine what prior knowledge students bring to the new
topic before they listen to the passage. They will respond to a key word or phrase such
as "Crimes are harmful to the society." They can write down as many words and
phrases as possible in five minutes' time related to this topic, or they may write freely
on this topic. While they write, they should not worry about the words and sentences
they write, just pay attention to the content. The whole process takes about ten
minutes. The teacher can write down the main ideas on the board. Then according to
the information, the teacher should adjust his/her teaching plan. The free association
method of assessing background knowledge was originally developed as part of a pre-

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reading plan. Later it was further developed as a measure of prior knowledge. The
learners are usually given three content words or phrases related to a topic and asked
to write anything that comes to mind when they hear each word or phrase. We can
also use the semantic webbing method. In this approach, teachers graphically connect
the various concepts and key words surrounding a particular topic on the blackboard,
helping students to see the possible relationship between ideas discussed. Here we
are not creating new knowledge, but making students aware of the knowledge they
already have by giving structure to the content information. This process will enable
them to connect what they are going to learn with what they have already known.
This teaching process can be done as group work. Students can be divided into
several groups to discuss the topic. Usually each group will come up with different
ideas. After a few minutes, the instructor can ask the group leader to report their
discussion results, and help them to put their ideas into appropriate groups and label
them properly. The students are encouraged to refer to a dictionary as they generate
their ideas.
 Another Type of Pre-listening Activity Is Questioning.
Usually teachers ask students questions after they finish listening. Here my
suggestion is giving them the questions before they listen to the target text. This task
more closely relates to what happens in the real world. We most often listen to the
speaker to find answers to the questions in our minds, relating to a certain topic, or to
confirm what we already thought to be true. Pre-passage questions induce a selective
attention strategy. If we use a certain textbook, in which questions always follow a
passage, we may ask the students to read the questions first. By reading the
questions, students may build up their own expectations about the coming information,
and also by trying to find answers to these questions, their prior knowledge on the

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topic can be activated. They can even have a framework of the organization of the
passage to be read if the questions are arranged in a well-arranged order.
For instance, students are expected to answer the following questions after they
listen to a passage.
1. What are the benefits of the social recognition of marriage for children?
2. What are the three areas the speaker will deal with in this lecture?
3. What are the three possibilities for the number of mates?
4. What are the possibilities for the locality of the marriage?
5. What are the possibilities for the transfer of wealth?
Ask the students to read the questions carefully, they will know the main idea of
the passage is marriage customs, and the speaker will mainly talk about the benefits
of social recognition of marriage for the children, the number of mates, the locality of
marriage, and the transfer of wealth after the marriage.
We can also use the student-generated questions by giving them a topic, letting
them ask questions about what kind of information they would like to know, and then
asking their classmates to give answers to the questions. Before they listen to a
dialogue between a policeman and a thief, tell them who the two speakers are, then
ask what they may talk about. You may also ask the learners to role play the dialogue.
However, this method may not be very appropriate for opinion-giving text or fiction. It is
best used for passages that provide factual information. If the passage is too long, one
possible solution for the teacher is divide the text into sections and implement the
approach section by section.
 Making List of Possibilities / Ideas / Suggestions
When the text contains lists, even short lists of possibilities /ideas /suggestions
or whatever, it is often a good idea to use list making as the pre-listening activity. This

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way the students can use their lists during the listening stage. While the students
make the list, they can use the words and phrases they have already known, or they
can ask their partners to help. Any checking type activity carried out while listening can
then be limited to matching with known language. This can increase the likelihood of
students succeeding with the task. So it is a very motivating activity, especially for the
lower level students.
The list making activity is very good for pair or group work. Students can work it
in a relaxed atmosphere because there is no right answer as to what should be on the
list. In the beginning of the course, when the students are not very familiar with the
activity, we may use list-making for the subjects about which people are very familiar
since they are likely to have a lot of ideas. For instance, "the food people like to eat",
"things children are afraid of", etc.
 Looking at Pictures Before Listening
I have used this many times with younger learners because they are good at
reading pictures. If you want to check whether the students can name some of the
items in the listening text, pre-listening "looking and talking about" is an effective way
of reminding the students of lexis which they may have forgotten or never known. It will
also help them to focus their attention on the coming topic. This is very good for
narrative or descriptive passages.
Why Are These Activities Important?
Listeners do make use of background knowledge for comprehension. Therefore
it seems logical to teach background knowledge in the second language program. In
China, the textbooks for listening are chosen by the department leaders and teachers
are required to follow the book closely. The texts are taken from various resources
from English speaking countries, which put emphasis on authenticity. These materials

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cover a wide range of fields in the target language culture. However, our students are
not culturally ready for these kind of materials.
They are forced to listen to the unknown, the remote and the bizarre, so that
they cannot use the top-down processing strategies very effectively.Therefore they are
forced to listen word by word or even sound by sound. Several scholars recommended
the use of narrowed materials, possibly with the local materials, such as school
newspapers, local novels etc (Carrell& Eisterhold, 1983).
They are right to a certain extent. However as foreign language learners, they
cannot always stick to narrow materials, we may start from narrow materials and
gradually move to authentic materials. So at the beginning of the course, students
should be given a pre-test on their background knowledge. Then we may present
listening passages in a graded order to ensure that for every topic the students have
some prior knowledge. The passages that are learned first would provide background
for later passages.
Pre-listening activities usually have two primary goals: a. to bring to
consciousness the tools and strategies that good listeners use when listening, and b.
to provide the necessary context for that specific listening task. Studies show that
learners comprehend more of a text if they are familiar with the text from experience or
they have known something about the topic before or they know in advance what the
listening passage concerns. The four kinds of pre-listening activities help to activate
students' prior knowledge, build up their expectations for the coming information and
sometimes even give them a framework of the coming passage. In this way we can
help our students to comprehend better.

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What Influences Our Choice of Top-down Activities? The choice of the activities
will depend on a number of factors, such as: the time available; the material available;
the ability of the class; the nature and content of the listening text itself.
The last item on the list " the nature of the listening text itself" is very important when
choosing activities. Some kind of activities are simply not appropriate to some types of
text, and in other instances, the text itself very naturally makes one type of activity
especially appropriate.
Listening texts which naturally rise to certain kind of top-down activities are
particularly useful and generally quite motivating for the students.
When the instructor designs these kind of activities, they should also take the time
element into consideration. You cannot have a fifteen- minute activity for a passage
which will last only three minutes. Remember the pre-listening process should not last
longer than the actual listening activity. The learners' proficiency is also a factor to
consider. The activities should not be too demanding, otherwise the students will lose
their interests. Henceforth, top-down processing is very important in listening
comprehension. In our native language, we do not listen to the speaker word by word,
and we are sometimes one step ahead of the speaker. Our students' cognitive level is
quite high, and they are quite strong in comprehension. The only problem is that their
English is not very good. Using top-down activities can quickly help them to transfer
their mother tongue listening strategies into English listening. Activating prior
knowledge is crucial in top-down processing.

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References
Carrell, P. L.& Eisterhold,J. (1983). Schema Theory and ESL Reading
Pedagogy. TESOL Quarterly, 23 (4), 647-678.
He, Q. etc (1992) Listen to This -- 2. Beijing -- Foreign Language Teaching and
Research Publishing House.
Kitao, S.K.C. (1989). Reading, Schema Theory and Second Language learners.
Tokyo; Eichosha Sininsha Co., LTD.
Chia,H (2001),Reading Activities for Effective top-down Processing. English
Teaching Forum, Vol 39 No 1.
Underwood, M ( 1989). Teaching listening. New York: Longman Inc.
Top-down Technique is a strategy of information processing and knowledge
ordering, used in a variety of fields including software, humanistic and scientific
theories and management and organization. In practice, they can be seen as a style of
thinking and teaching. A top-down approach (also known as stepwise design and in
some cases used as a synonym of decomposition) is essentially the breaking down of
a system to gain insight into its compositional sub-systems in a reverse engineering
fashion. In a top-down approach an overview of the system is formulated, specifying
but not detailing any first-level subsystems. Each subsystem is then refined in yet
greater detail, sometimes in many additional subsystem levels, until the entire
specification is reduced to base elements. A top-down model is often specified with the
assistance of "black boxes", these make it easier to manipulate. However, black boxes
may fail to elucidate elementary mechanisms or be detailed enough to realistically
validate the model. Top down approach starts with the big picture. It breaks down from
there into smaller segments.

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To appreciate this, let’s begin with points of view. The advocates of “top-down
interpretation” argue that background knowledge and previous experience of a
situation, context, and topic play primary roles in helping us interpret meaning. We use
prior knowledge and experience to anticipate, predict, and infer meaning. By contrast,
the advocates of “bottom-up processing” believe language relies more heavily on
decoding the sounds and letters of a language into words, clauses, sentences, and
such. We then use our knowledge of grammatical, syntactic and lexical rules to
interpret meaning. In this view, language users work from the bottom – the sounds
they hear and the letters they encounter – to identify meaning.
To put that broad debate into context, consider that the primary focus
of communicative language teaching is to develop communicative competence. CL
teachers develop this competence through the use of materials and activities that
focus on using language functions – for example, describing people and telling time.
Because native-speakers use higher mental schema when they are processing
language, language teachers develop activities that will enable their second-language
learners to do the same. Broadly speaking, activities of these kinds involve top-down
learning skills.
Is this always a good thing? No. Some language teachers are too quick to jump
on the top-down bandwagon. In our view, better teachers are those who strike a
conscious balance between top-down and bottom-up learning, which both have roles
in language instruction. According to Robert Norris, who uses listening activities to
illustrate, “If we…require (our) students to use native speaker processing skills without
first giving (them) a firm grounding in decoding the stream of sounds they hear, we run
the risk of causing (them) more frustration and confusion than they can handle.”
We will return to Norris’s thoughtful discussion shortly. In the meantime, remember

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that bottom-up processing is particularly important when learners use the receptive
language skills of listening and reading, because it plays a big role in making input
comprehensible. And comprehensible input is the engine of effective language
acquisition.
Bottom-up…: The bottom-up view assumes that listening is a process of
decoding sounds and graphemes (the letters of the alphabet). We start with the
smallest units, and gradually decode them until we understand the content of what we
are listening to or reading.
The number of micro-skills involved is large. For example, when we listen we
discriminate among the distinctive sounds of English, recognize stress patterns and
the rhythmic structure of English, and discern how we use stress and intonation to
signal information. Also, we need to identify words in stressed and unstressed
positions and in reduced forms. We also have to recognize grammatical structures and
typical word-order patterns. Meaning and comprehension are the last steps in the
decoding process.
When we read, we use the building blocks of language to make meaning of
what we see on the printed page. Bottom-up processes include sounds and
graphemes -- the representation of sounds by letters. In English this involves word
recognition for the countless irregular spellings and a sophisticated system of
punctuation. We then need to to process written information through grammar and
sentences. From these blocks we build comprehension.
and Top-down: By contrast, top-down proponents believe that language
processing involves the reconstruction of meaning through prior knowledge or
“schema.”

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Listeners actively reconstruct the original meaning of the speaker using
incoming sounds and other signals like body language as clues. Prior knowledge of
context and situation enables us to make sense of what we hear. A native speaker, for
example, may completely zone out while hearing the news, then snatch a few brief
cues that quickly draw him in. Similarly, when we begin a phone conversation to make
an appointment, we shift into formal speech-patterns for such situations. This is
another instance of schema guiding language use.
We also use schema to help us understand what we are reading. For example,
the format of letters, emails and magazine ads are similar from culture to culture. Their
format, whether in the reader’s first or second language, provides specific and useful
information about what we can be likely to expect. Other top-down skills include
surveying, skimming, scanning, reading for full comprehension, reading between the
lines (inference), and reacting personally to reading texts. Teaching these learning
strategies to your intermediate students can greatly improve their reading
comprehension.
The Language Level Issue: In his excellent discussion of top-down and bottom-
up teaching, Norris argues that the teaching community’s eagerness to focus on top-
down teaching is sometimes misguided. “Many of the listening materials on the market
today are concerned chiefly with helping learners become more adept at improving
top-down skills by having them (identify relevant information while ignoring
unnecessary details.)”
He adds, “In order to simulate the knowledge that native speakers bring to
listening, learners are often provided with vocabulary lists prior to the task and told
who the speakers are, what the situation is, and what the topic is about. However,

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scant attention is paid to the phonological characteristics that mark informal speech.
This seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse.”
Norris makes a strong case that teachers must develop both bottom-up and
top-down skills, especially at the lower levels. “Teachers are asking a lot from their
students… when top-down listening tasks are given without first assessing the
students' ability to do bottom-up processing.” His argument is sound. Learners need
many micro-skills learners for bottom-up processing, and a good teacher neglects
them at his peril. This applies especially to beginning and early intermediate students.
Wrap-up: The main conclusion of this discussion is that we need to feed both
learning processes when we are teaching our students. How and when can we use
top-down processing? When you are teaching, make sure your students are aware of
the format and general content of a reading, for example. Tell them they are going to
read a ghost story, for example, and then elicit ideas about what the content might be,
what vocabulary might occur, and so on. This switches on the ghost-story schema in
their brains, and also begins activating their English skills. You can do the same with
listening. Tell them you are about to listen to a sports broadcast on the Football World
Cup. Elicit information about football and the vocabulary they might expect to hear,
and so on. Also, of course, a CL teacher is constantly using authentic activities to
teach. Thus, a role-play “in the restaurant” is by its very nature a top-down
comprehension activity.
In these and many other ways, you can take advantage of your students’ ability
to use top-down comprehension to get them ready for the upcoming learning activity.
As your students advance, you can use more sophisticated top-down schema and
strategies.

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Bottom-up skills are different. As we have suggested throughout, they are
usually more basic and therefore more important for lower-level students. With those
students, you need to spend time helping them recognize reduced speech, for
example, and irregular spellings. In the early stages of language acquisition,
automaticity in word recognition is critical.
Communicative language teaching emulates real-life language acquisition,
which means our work has a top-down bias. Your class needs to use authentic
activities and materials to function effectively, and those materials tend to be top-
down. However, focusing exclusively on top-down teaching creates problems.
Especially with beginning students, spend time developing bottom-up skills.

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Bottom-Up Techniques
Bottom-up processing happens when someone tries to understand language by
looking at individual meanings or grammatical characteristics of the most basic units of
the text, (e.g. sounds for a listening or words for a reading), and moves from these to
trying to understand the whole text. Bottom-up processing is not thought to be a very
efficient way to approach a text initially, and is often contrasted with top-down
processing, which is thought to be more efficient.
For example:
Asking learners to read aloud may encourage bottom-up processing because
they focus on word forms, not meaning. In the classroom. Learners can be
encouraged to use both bottom-up and top-down strategies to help them understand a
text. For example in a reading comprehension learners use their knowledge of the
genre to predict what will be in the text (top-down), and their understanding of
affixation to guess meaning (bottom-up).
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/bottom
A Bottom-up Approach to ESL Learning and Teaching
Bottom-up: Language learning that proceeds from the most basic blocks of
language, such as words, and then proceeding to more complex structures, and finally
to meaning. This can be contrasted to top-down learning where students try to
understand the general message without understanding all of the constituent parts.
Listening for exact phrases and words would be considered a bottom-up listening
activity, whereas listening for the gist would be considered a top-down activity. Also,
studying individual grammatical structures or sentence structures would be bottom-up.
http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/threads/16541-A-Bottom-up-Approach-to-ESL-
Learning-and-Teaching

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Practical English Language Teaching
The approach (to teaching reading) that is accepted as the most
comprehensive description of the reading process is an interactive approach. This
combines elements of both bottom-up (fundamental basics of letter and sound
recognition) and top-down (comprehension is achieved by using background
knowledge and making predictions) approaches. The best readers in any language are
those who combine elements of both. For example, most readers begin reading by
using top-down reading strategies until there is a problem, and then they shift to
bottom-up strategies. Have you ever read something quickly and suddenly come to
several new words? You are required to slow down your reading to decode the new
words. When you do this, you are using bottom-up strategies to understand the words.
The best readers in any language are those who use interactive reading, which
integrates elements of both bottom-up and top-down reading. In the development of a
reading syllabus, it is important to consider the balance that you will give to these
processes. Beginning-level readers should be exposed to a strong bottom-up
component. This is perhaps the greatest weakness in the development of many
reading syllabi. Little or no attention is given to the explicit instruction of bottom-up
reading. A guideline that you could follow in preparing a syllabus for beginning level
readers is allocating 50 percent of your syllabus to teaching bottom-up skills, 30
percent to top-down skills, and 20 percent to interactive skills.
With a strong foundation in bottom-up skills, beginning-level readers will
become more-proficient readers more quickly. Systematic phonics instruction is a
bottom-up approach to reading that should be integrated into reading materials for
beginning proficiency-level readers. However, the reality is that most textbooks do not
deal with phonics instruction.

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There are also effective phonics programs that provide teacher instruction as
well as online learning support. Since much of the learning necessary for successful
phonics skills is individual, the computer-based learning environment is a particularly
good resource for English-language teachers. One such program is Reading Horizons.
Reading Horizons consists of 30 lessons. The lessons divide the 42 Sounds of English
into four consonant sounds and one vowel sound per lesson and systematically
introduce the letters by name and sound. Students then learn how to blend the
consonant and vowel sounds. They are then taught Digraphs and diphthongs, followed
by Special Vowel Sounds.
Reading Horizons teaches beginning readers Five Phonetic Skills for
effectively decoding sounds in English. The Five Phonetic Skills are:
 When one guardian consonant — and nothing more — follows the vowel, the
vowel will be short.
 When the vowel is followed by two guardian consonants and nothing more, the
vowel will be short.
 When a vowel stands alone, it will be long.
 Silent E makes the first vowel long.
 When vowels are adjacent, the second vowel is silent, and the first vowel is
long.
In addition, Reading Horizons teaches Two Decoding Skills:
 If there is only one guardian consonant following the vowel, that consonant will
move on to the next syllable.
 When a vowel is followed by two guardian consonants, the consonants will split.
The first consonant will stay in the first syllable, and the second consonant will
move on the next syllable.

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The program can be accomplished in the classroom with a trained teacher who
understands the teaching methodology used by Reading Horizons. In addition to
explicit classroom instruction, the lessons can be delivered via computer. The
computer program guides the students through the lessons and provides auditory as
well as visual input for learning the phonics rules.
Anderson, N. J. (2008) Practical English Language Teaching: Reading (pp.7, 28-
29) New York: McGraw-Hill Additional Insights from Dr. Neil
Jhttp://www.readinghorizons.com/research/practical-bottom-up-strategies-for-teaching-
reading. Anderson:
Bottom-Up Listening Activities and Techniques
The emphasis in EFL listening materials in recent years has been on
developing top-down listening processes. There are good reasons for this given that
learners need to be able to listen effectively even when faced with unfamiliar
vocabulary or structures. However, if the learner understands very few words from the
incoming signal, even knowledge about the context may not be sufficient for her to
understand what is happening, and she can easily get lost. Of course, low-level
learners may simply not have enough vocabulary or knowledge of the language yet,
but most teachers will be familiar with the situation in which higher-level students fail to
recognise known words in the stream of fast connected speech. Bottom-up listening
activities can help learners to understand enough linguistic elements of what they hear
to then be able to use their top-down skills to fill in the gaps.
The following procedure for developing bottom-up listening skills draws on
dictogloss, and is designed to help learners recognize the divisions between words, an
important bottom-up listening skill. The teacher reads out a number of sentences, and
asks learners to write down how many words there would be in the written form. While

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the task might sound easy, for learners the weak forms in normal connected speech
can make it problematic, so it is very important for the teacher to say the sentences in
a very natural way, rather than dictating them word-by-word.
Some suitable sentences are:
I’m going to the shop.
Do you want some chocolate?
Let’s have a party!
I’d better go soon.
You shouldn’t have told him.
What are you doing?
There isn’t any coffee.
What have you got?
He doesn’t like it.
It’s quite a long way.
Why did you think you’d be able to?
Can you tell him I called?
Learners can be asked to compare their answers in pairs, before listening again
to check. While listening a third time, they could write what they hear, before
reconstructing the complete sentences in pairs or groups. By comparing their version
with the correct sentences, learners will become more aware of the sounds of normal
spoken English, and how this is different from the written or carefully spoken form.
This will help them to develop the skill of recognizing known words and identifying
word divisions in fast connected speech.
A bottom-up approach is the piecing together of systems to give rise to more
complex systems, thus making the original systems sub-systems of the emergent

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system. Bottom-up processing is a type of information processing based on incoming
data from the environment to form a perception. From a Cognitive Psychology
perspective, information enters the eyes in one direction (sensory input, or the
"bottom"), and is then turned into an image by the brain that can be interpreted and
recognized as a perception (output that is "built up" from processing to final cognition).
In a bottom-up approach the individual base elements of the system are first specified
in great detail. These elements are then linked together to form larger subsystems,
which then in turn are linked, sometimes in many levels, until a complete top-level
system is formed. This strategy often resembles a "seed" model, whereby the
beginnings are small but eventually grow in complexity and completeness. However,
"organic strategies" may result in a tangle of elements and subsystems, developed in
isolation and subject to local optimization as opposed to meeting a global purpose.
Psychology long ago began to debate two views – “top-down interpretation” and
“bottom-up processing”– of how we understand language. Although the evidence is
ambiguous, researchers generally believe they are distinct but complementary
processes. For language instructors, the debate is less important than an appreciation
of the roles these parallel processes play in classroom teaching and learning.
This discussion argues that good teaching practice accepts both views of
language learning. However, their relative importance largely depends on the skills of
the language learner.
Techniques for Developing Bottom-Up Listening Skill/s
Language learning depends on listening. Listening provides the aural input that
serves as the basis for language acquisition and enables learners to interact in spoken
communication.

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Effective language instructors show students how they can adjust their listening
behavior to deal with a variety of situations, types of input, and listening purposes.
They help students develop a set of listening strategies and match appropriate
strategies to each listening situation.
Listening Strategies
Listening strategies are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the
comprehension and recall of listening input. Listening strategies can be classified by
how the listener processes the input.
Bottom-up strategies are text based; the listener relies on the language in the
message, that is, the combination of sounds, words, and grammar that creates
meaning. Bottom-up strategies include
listening for specific details
recognizing cognates
recognizing word-order patterns
Strategic listeners also use metacognitive strategies to plan, monitor, and evaluate
their listening.
 They plan by deciding which listening strategies will serve best in a particular
situation.
 They monitor their comprehension and the effectiveness of the selected
strategies.
 They evaluate by determining whether they have achieved their listening
comprehension goals and whether the combination of listening strategies
selected was an effective one.
Listening for Meaning
To extract meaning from a listening text, students need to follow four basic steps:

29
 Figure out the purpose for listening. Activate background knowledge of the topic
in order to predict or anticipate content and identify appropriate listening
strategies.
 Attend to the parts of the listening input that are relevant to the identified
purpose and ignore the rest. This selectivity enables students to focus on
specific items in the input and reduces the amount of information they have to
hold in short-term memory in order to recognize it.
 Select top-down and bottom-up strategies that are appropriate to the listening
task and use them flexibly and interactively. Students' comprehension improves
and their confidence increases when they use top-down and bottom-up
strategies simultaneously to construct meaning.
 Check comprehension while listening and when the listening task is over.
Monitoring comprehension helps students detect inconsistencies and
comprehension failures, directing them to use alternate strategies.
Bottom-up decoding: reading and listening for the future
Mark Bartram, a teacher trainer and materials writer, explores different
approaches for processing written and spoken text, and how they can be integrated
into the English language classroom.
Are you a top-downer or a bottom-upper? The debate as to the relative
importance of these two approaches to understanding spoken or written text has been
going on for decades. Most people would agree that both approaches are useful at
different times and for different reasons. In this blog I will attempt to explain why the
bottom-up approach should not be neglected.

30
First, some definitions.
Bottom-up processing starts from the text. It assumes that by working on a
combination of different aspects of the written or spoken text, the learner can increase
their ability to comprehend it. These might be very “micro-” elements, such as the fact
that we tend to insert a “w” sound between certain vowels; or they could be at a more
“macro-” level, such as searching for synonyms within a text. The key idea here
is decoding.
For example, in order to understand the second sentence of this piece (the one that
starts “The debate…”), you needed to work out that the first 17 words are the subject
(a complex noun phrase), that the verb comes next (“has been going on”), followed by
an adverbial (though unless you are a grammar geek, you won’t have used these
terms). Identifying the verb is a key aspect of decoding complex texts.
Improving the ability to decode
Most people would agree that we use a combination of the two approaches when we
are processing a text. We tend to switch from one to another as is needed. But
whereas it used to be thought that we revert to bottom-up processing when we are
unable to use top-down (for example, if we are unable to predict the content, we have
to listen to the actual words!), research suggests that in fact the reverse is true. If you
are in a noisy café, and can’t “decode” what your friend is saying (bottom-up), you tend
to fill in the gaps with your knowledge of the world, or your friend’s usual speech
habits.
Within this framework, the idea of “comprehending a text” needs to be defined.
Many activities in coursebooks are essentially asking the learners: “Did you
understand this text?” – i.e. the one in front of them. This can work as an assessment
or diagnostic tool, but the danger is that it does not prepare the learners for

31
the next text. In other words, we need to train learners in transferable skills that can be
used for any text in the future.
We can do this to a limited extent with top-down activities – for example, we can
train learners to use prediction techniques to anticipate the content and language of a
text. Furthermore, classroom research and teacher experience tell us that top-down
activities such as the ones listed above can be integrated easily into lessons, are
motivating and fun, and enhance the overall experience for the learner. So we should
not discount top-down activities entirely.
However, common sense tells us that we are often in situations where we are less
able to use top-down skills, for example, in exams, or simply when we turn on the
radio at random. At this point, our ability to decode becomes key. And it is with bottom-
up approaches that the training aspect comes into its own.
Vocabulary, of course, is vital. The wider your vocabulary, the more fluent your reading
or listening is likely to be. However, bottom-up skills remain important because they
work on aspects of the text that are useful even when the learner’s vocabulary level is
high. We have all heard learners say plaintively “Well, I know all these words, but I still
didn’t get what they were saying!” For this reason, reading and listening activities need
to include work on decoding text.
Subsequent blog articles will explore how training in bottom-up decoding can be
introduced painlessly into the classroom.
http://oupeltglobalblog.com/2014/07/01/bottom-up-decoding-reading-and-listening-for-
the-future/

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Teaching Listening
Goals and Techniques for Teaching Listening
Instructors want to produce students who, even if they do not have complete control of
the grammar or an extensive lexicon, can fend for themselves in communication
situations. In the case of listening, this means producing students who can use
listening strategies to maximize their comprehension of aural input, identify relevant
and non-relevant information, and tolerate less than word-by-word comprehension.
Focus: The Listening Process
To accomplish this goal, instructors focus on the process of listening rather than on its
product.
 They develop students' awareness of the listening process and listening
strategies by asking students to think and talk about how they listen in their
native language.
 They allow students to practice the full repertoire of listening strategies by using
authentic listening tasks.
 They behave as authentic listeners by responding to student communication as
a listener rather than as a teacher.
 When working with listening tasks in class, they show students the strategies
that will work best for the listening purpose and the type of text. They explain
how and why students should use the strategies.
 They have students practice listening strategies in class and ask them to
practice outside of class in their listening assignments. They encourage
students to be conscious of what they're doing while they complete listening
tape assignments.

33
 They encourage students to evaluate their comprehension and their strategy
use immediately after completing an assignment. They build comprehension
checks into in-class and out-of-class listening assignments, and periodically
review how and when to use particular strategies.
 They encourage the development of listening skills and the use of listening
strategies by using the target language to conduct classroom business: making
announcements, assigning homework, describing the content and format of
tests.
 They do not assume that students will transfer strategy use from one task to
another. They explicitly mention how a particular strategy can be used in a
different type of listening task or with another skill.
By raising students' awareness of listening as a skill that requires active engagement,
and by explicitly teaching listening strategies, instructors help their students develop
both the ability and the confidence to handle communication situations they may
encounter beyond the classroom. In this way they give their students the foundation
for communicative competence in the new language.

34

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Metacognitive Techniques
Before listening: Plan for the listening task
 Set a purpose or decide in advance what to listen for
 Decide if more linguistic or background knowledge is needed
 Determine whether to enter the text from the top down (attend to the overall
meaning) or from the bottom up (focus on the words and phrases)
During and after listening: Monitor comprehension
 Verify predictions and check for inaccurate guesses
 Decide what is and is not important to understand
 Listen/view again to check comprehension
 Ask for help
After listening: Evaluate comprehension and strategy use
 Evaluate comprehension in a particular task or area
 Evaluate overall progress in listening and in particular types of listening tasks
 Decide if the strategies used were appropriate for the purpose and for the task
 Modify strategies if necessary
Using Authentic Materials and Situations
Authentic materials and situations prepare students for the types of listening they will
need to do when using the language outside the classroom.
One-Way Communication
Materials:
 Radio and television programs
 Public address announcements (airports, train/bus stations, stores)
 Speeches and lectures
 Telephone customer service recordings

36
Procedure:
 Help students identify the listening goal: to obtain specific information; to decide
whether to continue listening; to understand most or all of the message
 Help students outline predictable sequences in which information may be
presented: who-what-when-where (news stories); who-flight number-
arriving/departing-gate number (airport announcements); "for [function], press
[number]" (telephone recordings)
 Help students identify key words/phrases to listen for
Two-Way Communication
In authentic two-way communication, the listener focuses on the speaker's meaning
rather than the speaker's language. The focus shifts to language only when meaning is
not clear. Note the difference between the teacher as teacher and the teacher as
authentic listener in the dialogues in the popup screens.
http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/listening/goalslisten.htm
Purpose
The purpose of Teaching Metacognitive Strategies is to provide students explicit
teacher instruction for a specific metacognitive (learning) strategy.
What are they?
 First, a metacognitive strategy is a memorable "plan of action" that provides
students an easy to follow procedure for solving a particular math problem.
 Second, metacognitive strategies are taught using explicit teaching methods.
 Metacognitive strategies include the student's thinking as well as their physical
actions.
 Some of the most common metacognitive strategies come in the form of
mnemonics which are meaningful words where the letters in the word each

37
stand for a step in a problem-solving process or for important pieces of
information about a particular topic of interest.
 Metacognitive strategies are memorable and it must accurately represent the
learning task.
What are the critical elements of this strategy?
The following list includes critical elements of Teaching Metacognitive Strategies:
 Metacognitive strategies are taught using explicit teaching methods (see
Explicit Teacher Modeling).
 Metacognitive strategies are accurate and efficient procedures for specific math
problem-solving situations.
 Metacognitive strategies are memorable.
 Metacognitive strategies incorporate both student thinking and student actions
necessary for performing target math skill.
 Students need ample practice opportunities to master use of a metacognitive
strategy.
 Student memory of a metacognitive strategy is enhanced when students are
provided with individual strategy cue sheets and/or when the metacognitive
strategy is posted in the classroom.
 Monitor student use of strategies and reinforce their appropriate use of
strategies.

38
How do I implement the strategy?
1. Choose an appropriate metacognitive strategy for the math skill (For a list of
metacognitive strategies by math concept area clickVideos and Resources on
the top menu, then click Metacognitive Strategies).
2. Describe and model the strategy at least three times. Use those instructional
components emphasized in explicit teacher modeling (see the instructional
strategy Explicit Teacher Modeling.)
3. Check student understanding. Ensure they understand both the strategy and
how to use it.
4. Provide ample opportunities for students to practice using the strategy.
5. Provide timely corrective feedback and remodel use of strategy as needed.
6. Provide students with strategy cue sheets (or post the strategy in the
classroom) as students begin independently using the strategy. Fade the use of
cues as students demonstrate they have memorized the strategy and how (as
well as when) to use it. (*Some students will benefit from a "strategy notebook"
in which they keep both the strategies they have learned and the corresponding
math skill they can use each strategy for.)
7. Make a point of reinforcing students for using the strategy appropriately.
8. Implicitly model using the strategy when performing the corresponding math
skill in class.

39
How Does This Instructional Strategy Positively Impact Students Who Have
Learning Problems?
 Provides students an efficient way to acquire, store, and express math-related
information and skills.
 Provides students who have memory problems an efficient way to retrieve from
memory information they have learned.
 Facilitates independence by those learners who are typically dependent on high
levels of teacher support.
 Helps students move from concrete and representational understanding to
abstract understanding.
Additional Information
Research Support for the Instructional Features of This Strategy: Allsopp
(1997); Borkowski (1992); Jitendra, Hoff, & Beck (1999); Lenz, Ellis, & Scanlon (1996);
Miller & Mercer (1993); Miller, Strawser, & Mercer (1996); Montague (1992); Morroco
(2001); Owen & Fuchs (2002); Paris & Winograd (1990); Strichart, Mangrum, &
Iannuzzi (1998); Swanson (1999).
Metacognition combines various attended thinking and reflective processes. It
can be divided into five primary components: (1) preparing and planning for learning,
(2) selecting and using learning strategies, (3) monitoring strategy use, (4)
orchestrating various strategies, and (5) evaluating strategy use and learning.
Teachers should model strategies for learners to follow in all five areas, which are
discussed below.
"Preparing and Planning for Learning"
Preparation and planning are important metacognitive skills that can improve
student learning. By engaging in preparation and planning in relation to a learning

40
goal, students are thinking about what they need or want to accomplish and how they
intend to go about accomplishing it. Teachers can promote this reflection by being
explicit about the particular learning goals they have set for the class and guiding the
students in setting their own learning goals. The more clearly articulated the goal, the
easier it will be for the learners to measure their progress. The teacher might set a
goal for the students of mastering the vocabulary from a particular chapter in the
textbook. A student might set a goal for himself of being able to answer the
comprehension questions at the end of the chapter.
"Selecting and Using Learning Strategies"
Researchers have suggested that teaching readers how to use specific reading
strategies is a prime consideration in the reading classroom (Anderson, 1999; Cohen,
1998; Oxford, 1990). The metacognitive ability to select and use particular strategies in
a given context for a specific purpose means that the learner can think and make
conscious decisions about the learning process.
To be effective, metacognitive instruction should explicitly teach students a
variety of learning strategies and also when to use them. For example, second
language readers have a variety of strategies from which to choose when they
encounter vocabulary that they do not know and that they have determined they need
to know to understand the main idea of a text. One possible strategy is word analysis:
for example, dividing the word into its prefix and stem. Another possible strategy is the
use of context clues to help guess the meaning of a word. But students must receive
explicit instruction in how to use these strategies, and they need to know that no single
strategy will work in every instance. Teachers need to show them how to choose the
strategy that has the best chance of success in a given situation. For example,

41
unfamiliar words that include prefixes or suffixes that the student knows (e.g., anti-, -
ment) are good candidates for the use of a word analysis strategy.
"Monitoring Strategy Use"
By monitoring their use of learning strategies, students are better able to keep
themselves on track to meet their learning goals. Once they have selected and begun
to implement specific strategies, they need to ask themselves periodically whether or
not they are still using those strategies as intended. For example, students may be
taught that an effective writing strategy involves thinking about their audience and their
purpose in writing (e.g., to explain, to persuade). Students can be taught that to
monitor their use of this strategy, they should pause occasionally while writing to ask
themselves questions about what they are doing, such as whether or not they are
providing the right amount of background information for their intended audience and
whether the examples they are using are effective in supporting their purpose.
"Orchestrating Various Strategies"
Knowing how to orchestrate the use of more than one strategy is an important
metacognitive skill. The ability to coordinate, organize, and make associations among
the various strategies available is a major distinction between strong and weak second
language learners. Teachers can assist students by making them aware of multiple
strategies available to them-for example, by teaching them how to use both word
analysis and context clues to determine the meaning of an unfamiliar word. The
teacher also needs to show students how to recognize when one strategy isn't working
and how to move on to another. For example, a student may try to use word analysis
to determine the meaning of the ord antimony, having recognized anti as a prefix
meaning against. But that strategy won't work in this instance. Anti is not a prefix here;
antimony is a metallic chemical element that has nothing to do with being against or

42
opposed to something. When the student finds that word analysis does not help her
figure out what this word means, she needs to know how to turn to other strategies,
such as context clues, to help her understand the word.
"Evaluating Strategy Use and Learning"
Second language learners are actively involved in metacognition when they
attempt to evaluate whether what they are doing is effective. Teachers can help
students evaluate their strategy use by asking them to respond thoughtfully to the
following questions: (1) What am I trying to accomplish? (2) What strategies am I
using? (3) How well am I using them? (4) What else could I do? Responding to these
four questions integrates all of the previous aspects of metacognition, allowing the
second language learner to reflect through the cycle of learning. Preparing and
planning relates to identifying what is to be accomplished, while selecting and using
particular strategies relates to the question of which strategies are being used. The
third question corresponds to monitoring strategy use, while the fourth relates to the
orchestration of strategies. The whole cycle is evaluated during this stage of
metacognition For example, while teaching the specific reading skill of main idea
comprehension, the teacher can help students evaluate their strategy use by using the
four questions:
http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-1/role.htm

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