WOC208 Unit D Activity What is Bottom-up processing? In this post, we’ll talk about the two processes we use to comprehend written and spoken texts: top down and bottom up. We’ll talk about the difficulties students face when reading and listening to texts, provide definitions, real examples of the processes taking place in learning and share classroom ideas to help you plan effective receptive skills lessons to your learners. Why do students find it difficult to read and listen in a second language? Reading and Listening are both receptive skills, but the difficulties faced by students when reading or listening to a text vary. In reading, we can receive information “at our own pace”: if a word / expression is unknown, the reader can stop, read again, and take their time to understand what is written. In listening, this does not happen - once the content is said, it is gone! Written text is generally more standardised than spoken text - although there might be differences in spelling, vocabulary, and even use of grammar depending on where you are, spoken English is much more varied than written English. Accents and regionalisms are definitely more present in oral speech, and these may pose difficulties in comprehension Because of the reasons mentioned above, students might get anxious and apprehensive when trying to understand spoken text. This hinders comprehension even more! When people read or listen in their native language, they naturally employ strategies that help them decode the text. Also, their native knowledge of the language helps them comprehend the text with ease. In a second language, we need to consciously employ strategies (which we talk about in these posts). Apart from this, our brain finds a way to break down and process the information it receives. These processes are called top-down and bottom-up. Bottom-up processing I wanted to be absolutely sure that, if I followed that arrow, I would end up in a gym. So I unconsciously started processing the information from the bottom up. I don’t know the Cyrillic alphabet, but I know Greek. Some letters are the same; and some letters are the same as in the Latin alphabet. So I started looking at the words to make sure I understood the message on that sign: WOC208 Unit D Activity In this case, I’m using bottom-up processing: I’m looking at clues in the text to better comprehend it. These clues can be semantic, syntactic, phonological (in spoken texts). In this example, I needed to identify individual letters to reach word level. I recognised some of the words, and confirmed that the sign would actually take me to a gym! Classroom ideas Being aware of the mental processes that lead to better understanding of a text is vital to decide what to do in the classroom to help learners read and listen better. There’s no way to “choose” a process to develop - both take place at the same time. Here are some ideas that can ensure you give learners opportunities to develop their receptive skills: Before students read or listen to a text, give them time to: - Identify words / phrases they already know (names, numbers, cognates) - Use their knowledge of word formation (e.g. affixation) to understand words they don’t know - Use their knowledge of discourse to understand how a text is structured (paragraphs, discourse markers) Source: https://www.whatiselt.com/single-post/2019/07/22/what-is-top-down-and-bottom-upprocessing WOC208 Unit D Activity Bottom-up listening activities 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 recognise 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 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. WOC208 Unit D Activity This will help them to develop the skill of recognising known words and identifying word divisions in fast connected speech. Conclusion Successful reading and listening depends on the ability to combine top-down and bottom-up processing. Activities which work on each strategy separately should help students to combine top-down and bottom-up processes to become more effective listeners and readers in real-life situations or when presented with longer classroom texts. Source: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/listening-top-down-bottom
