Page 1

ASSIGNMENT TITLE: Helping pre-intermediate learners comprehend listening texts using

top down processing.

WORDCOUNT: 2499
DATE OF SUBMISSION: 20/10/2014
CANDIDATE NAME: BENJAMIN WERNER EICHHORN
CENTRE NUMBER: OO001

Benjamin Werner Eichhorn

Helping pre-intermediate learners comprehend listening media using top down processing.

Page 2

Contents
1 Introduction
3
2 Analysis
3
2.1 How do we listen

2.2 Drawing from background knowledge

2.3 Sub skills used in a top-down approach

2.4 Using additional sub-skills for listening

4

3 Issues

3.1 Learners listening for complete understanding in a gist task

4
3.2 Learners are unable to connect any of their own background information to the
topic of the dialogue.
5
3.3 Students rely too much on making predictions and assumptions
6
3.4 Students unable to follow dialogue after activating background knowledge due to
accents of speakers in the dialogue
6
3.5 Teachers only introduce a listening component without activating schema due to
focus on exam preparation
7

Suggestions for teaching

5
3.11 Encourage students to use other parts of the extract to gain understanding
5
3.21 Pre teach students cultural aspects
3.31 Students reflect on listening comprehension mistakes
6
3.41 Allow learners to tune in to a recording
7

Benjamin Werner Eichhorn

Helping pre-intermediate learners comprehend listening media using top down processing.

Page 3

3.51 Ensure students always activate background knowledge

4. Bibiography
8
5. Appendices
1 Introduction

9-14

As both a language learner and teacher, I know that listening is essential aspect of learning a
language. Students can, when taught effective processes, begin to develop the skills required
to listen independently outside of the classroom. It has historically, however, been regarded as
the least important aspect of learning a language, with its superior skill speaking often
gaining more attention. (Wilson 17:2009)
What is often overlooked, is how to present this media in a way in which students can
effectively listen and process the information. Students can sometimes switch off when
being presented with a text due to being overloaded with information (Wilson:2009:14) To
prevent this, listeners need to use top-down processing to gain an initial understanding. This
essentially involves learners first understanding the general idea of the dialogue before
listening in more detail for specific words or phonological features. This process is the opposite
of bottom-up processing, whereby learners initially listen for phonemes and syllables and then
gradually work up to develop the whole picture of the dialogue. From my own experience
prioritizing bottom-up is generally not as effective as native speakers and learners will
instinctively first identify the context, and then be able to comprehend more specific details.
2 Analysis
-2.1 How do we listen
There are 4 main sub-skills used for listening:

Listening for gist: When we listen for an overall idea of the meaning of a text i.e the
context, the people speaking and the purpose.

Listening for specific information: When listeners only need to understand specific part of
the information in the dialogue, such as listening for information about a particular flight
status and thus listen selectively.

Listening in detail: Listening for specific reasons why someone believes something.
Listening for details about an issue or belief.

Inferential listening: Discovering the overall feeling or opinions the speakers convey. These
might not always be explicitly stated.

(Wilson, 2009:10)
Before developing these sub-skills though, it is important listeners are prepared to listen to the
text. We do this by connecting our background knowledge with the context in the dialogue.
2.2 Drawing from background knowledge
Top-down processing works by getting students to initially activate schemata i.e referring to
background knowledge from their own lives or previous lessons. Schematic knowledge in
Benjamin Werner Eichhorn

Helping pre-intermediate learners comprehend listening media using top down processing.

Page 4

learners is often considered as important as linguistic knowledge in aiding communication and

comprehension (Widdowson 1983 cited from Cooke 1997)

Schema can be divided into two main types: content and formal schema (Carrell, 1983).
Content schema relates to the knowledge the learner has about a topic in connection with their
own experiences and perceptions. Formal schema refer to knowledge about how discourse is
organized with respect to different genres, different topics, or different purposes (e.g.,
transactional versus interactional), including relevant sociocultural knowledge (Celce-Murcia
and Olshtain,102:2000) An example of this is how we assume a lecture is organized. We would
expect to hear an introduction and overview, some sections with a summary at the end of each
one as well as a round up on what was covered. (Hedge 233:2000)
2.3 Sub skills used in a top down approach
The top-down approach enables learners to use prior knowledge to infer meaning (Hedge
234:2000). It helps learners to avoid mistakes in mishearing certain words that may sound
similar such as walk and work. If a learner is aware that they are listening to a text
about discovering and hiking in the lake district, then they are less likely to expect the word
work to be mentioned.
This previous knowledge from schema also allows listeners to predict what they might hear.
They can formal schemata to predict some common follow up questions or the sequence of a
dialogue in a particular situation. They can also infer details of content, i.e what might be
occurring, even if it is not explicitly mentioned in the recording, by making assumptions based
on their experiences or knowledge in similar situations. (Richards 9:2008)
2.4 Using additional sub skills for listening
The top-down approach facilitates the assimilation of new information into the information
already stored (Xie 68:2005) This means that once the listeners schemata have been
activated, any new information heard is easier to process. In Appendix 1 we can see how the
background knowledge supports deeper comprehension of the text.
However, sometimes bottom-up listening is more appropriate. Listeners can use an interactive
model, (Richards 10:2008 and Field 132-133:2008) where both top-down and bottom-up
activities are used at the same time for different skills to facilitate understanding. An example
might be when there is not enough background knowledge, or when a specific lexical item or
structure needs to be highlighted (Richards 4:2008) Bottom up processing is necessary when the
exact meaning of a sentence or word is required by the listener. Nevertheless, I still believe
that the top-down approach is the initial processing listeners do and a bottom-up approach is
used as the secondary process. An example might be when we listen to a song first, we get an
overall feeling about the meaning, i.e top-down. Analysing the individual words, sounds, and
elements of the song is generally what people do after listening a few times, i.e bottom-up.
Bottom-up listening also requires higher concentration to decipher language so it should only
be used selectively by listeners and is generally easier after listening with a top-down focus
first or when employed selectively.
3 Issues and Suggestions
3.1 Learners listening for complete understanding in a gist task.
Benjamin Werner Eichhorn

Helping pre-intermediate learners comprehend listening media using top down processing.

Page 5

Learners often try to listen and understand everything being said and pay too much attention
to the elements of the text they dont understand. Listeners then focus too much on trying to
decipher individual elements and lose understanding of the overall text. They may not be using
sub-skills mentioned in 2.3. In my experience of listening to foreign languages, once you start
to focus on a sentence that was misunderstood, you are no longer listening to the subsequent
dialogue.
3.11 Suggestion: Encourage students to use other parts of the extract to gain understanding
Aims: To encourage students to use prior knowledge and their general understanding to
complete a gist listening activity.
Procedure: Introduce dialogue or video with some background discussion or a short text. Get
students to sequence events and make predictions for a video. Play first without sound and
students peer check but dont give answers. Play again with sound and check and give
answers. Repeat extract with students answering more detailed questions.
Value: Students are forced to use other things to understand and predict events and connect
relevant aspects of L1 interaction to their future understanding of L2 discourse. This also helps
learners improve the sub skill listening for gist by considering all information they can
comprehend. See appendix 2
Follow up: An alternative activity could be done in an audio only extract where learners focus
on the tones or only hear broken sections of the dialogue and have to make predictions about
the other parts.
3.2 Learners are unable to connect any of their own background information to the topic of
the dialogue.
It is occasionally the case that learners can make no connection with their background with a
topic or issue raised in a class. This means learners do not benefit from activating schemata
stage in a top down process (see 2.4) and struggle to complete subsequent stages of prediction
as there is nothing for them to source ideas from. This can occur when a topic has little
cultural connection with the learners. An example I have experience has come in Vietnam when
trying to get students to listen to a story about an adventure sports holiday. This is an
uncommon type of holiday as Vietnamese tend to go on holiday to relax and socialize rather
than do sports and take risks outside of their comfort zone.
3.21 Suggestion: Pre teach students cultural aspects
Aim: To enable students to better understand a certain topic which is unfamiliar to their
culture or environment, before they do a listening task on the topic.
Procedure: Introduce the topic with realia photos or a video with no dialogue (e.g a sport like
kayaking or parkour) Students discuss what is happening in the media and elicit any relevant
vocabulary. Present meaning form and pronunciation of any vocabulary necessary to understand
the concept and the subsequent topic but pre teach a maximum of 5 words. After follow with a
more specific background introduction i.e the place, the speakers etc. before playing the
extract.
Value: This gives students a better ability to comprehend a wider range of topics in L2.
Students will also then have background knowledge relating to this subject to draw from as
explained in 2.2 for both reading and listening. From my experience it is always important for
Benjamin Werner Eichhorn

Helping pre-intermediate learners comprehend listening media using top down processing.

Page 6

a teacher to act as both a teacher of language and as a cultural bridge between the learners
cultural background and their own.
Follow up: Wilson states If the script seems completely alien to the students, it may lend
itself to a discussion of cultural differences (Wilson 72:2009) Thus, an ideal activity would be
for students to discuss and compare the attitudes or beliefs of people in their own culture
regarding the topic in comparison with those in an English speaking country.

3.3 Students rely too much on making predictions and assumptions

One criticism of the top-down approach is that students make too many assumptions when
listening and fail to comprehend the actual message in the dialogue (Wilson 15:2009). There
are in fact some tests such as the IELTS listening test and FCE that specifically test a students
comprehension by including so-called distractors to see if they are trying to make guesses
simply by creating a picture themselves after hearing certain key words. These words might in
fact be in a sentence relating to the speakers past or be later changed or given as a negative
statement. E.g. I used to go swimming every day but now I prefer just to ride my bike with
the question what does the person do to keep fit. This issue often affects pre-intermediate
learners of the language as they are often only partially understand the dialogue and make
assumptions based on words they know.
3.31 Suggestion Students reflect on listening comprehension mistakes
Aim: To make students aware of any mistakes they have made by assuming content when using
top-down processing.
Procedure: Learners discuss the topic of the listening text with schema activating exercises.
Context is set for the listening before listening for detail. Learners complete and teacher gets
students to review certain parts of the extract with the transcript. Teacher plays key areas of
the recording again to highlight the issue. Students consider why they might have chosen the
wrong answer and why what speakers say. See Appendix 3
Value: From my experience as an IELTS teacher, this is a common mistake with learners. As I
said in 2.4, bottom up is sometimes needed for precise meaning after top-down listening.
Learners can sometimes rely too much on what they expect to hear and make assumptions
based on the partial understanding that they have. Here a bottom-up reflective activity
gives students awareness of this issue. It also allows students also begin to know when it is
necessary to listen for more detail and gets them to analyse the sentence structures and
specific meaning.
Follow up: The teacher can in a future lesson give a similar listening activity with distractors
and remind students of the techniques they may need to use at certain points during the
activity
3.4 Students unable to follow dialogue after activating background knowledge due to
accents of speakers in the dialogue
Though top-down processing can provide content-related preparation for listening, it has less
effect in preparing students with different accents of English. This especially effects preintermediate learners who are likely to have only listened to a restricted range of accents
beforehand. Such accents may be easily understood by native speakers but in some cases may
be difficult for non native speakers even when it comes to allophones, i.e various ways of
pronouncing a phoneme. Vietnamese speakers for example, have difficulty when hearing
Benjamin Werner Eichhorn

Helping pre-intermediate learners comprehend listening media using top down processing.

Page 7

variations of vowel sounds as this kind of change often affects meaning in Vietnamese.

3.41 Allow learners to tune in to a recording

Aim: To help students adjust to the speakers, voices and context.
Procedure: Students hear the start of the text and are given 1 or 2 questions relating to the
context of the conversation. Students answer the questions and then the recording is repeated
with more complicated questions for the students to complete. See Appendix 4
Value: Students have the opportunity to go through the so-called process of normalisation
where they can adjust to the characteristics of the delivery of speech of the text (Wilson 2009).
This can be considered as a gist task, though is different from many as it only requires students
to listen to a short part of the recording. Additionally, because only a part of the recording is
played, students have further opportunity (after having previously activated schema) to predict
what will happen further into the dialogue before it is played. (see 2.3)
Follow up: More challenging questions can then be introduced and a follow-up recording can
also be added for extended listening as shown in appendix 4.
3.5 Teachers and books only introduce a listening component without activating schema
due to focus on exam preparation
Sometimes teachers may simply select a listening activity for students to do without any topdown listening activities to activate background knowledge. Teachers often focus more finding
answers to questions in IELTS preparation classes. Books teach students what to do while
listening and get students to prepare for the individual questions, e.g. Look and see if you
know any synonyms of the words in the questions. However, the overall picture of the extract
is not considered and the learner is not able to review their background knowledge. This can
lead to students simply listening using bottom-up skills in which they listen for individual
words. It is likely they will then be overloaded with information, especially when listening to
IELTS section 2 and 4 extracts.
3.51 Suggestion: Ensure students always activate background knowledge
Teachers should be encouraged to consider background knowledge of the extract first even in
cases when the strategy for answering the questions is the lesson focus as explained in 2.4 and
in Appendix 1. When students have considered the context and made predictions based on the
questions they are always better prepared to analyse the specific questions and consider
synonyms. This will prevent students from being overwhelmed and tuning out of the text.
Teachers can be provided with information shown in appendix 5. In subsequent lessons, this
learner preparation process can be emphasised less as learners begin to automatically do it.

Benjamin Werner Eichhorn

Helping pre-intermediate learners comprehend listening media using top down processing.

Page 8

Bibliography
Carrell, P.L. (1983). Some issues in Studying the Role of Schemata, or Background
Knowledge, in Second language Comprehension. Reading in a Foreign Language,
Vol.1, pp.81-92
Celce-Murcia, M., & Olshtain, E. (2000). Disourse and Context in Language Teaching:
A Guide for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Guy Cooke 1997 Key Concepts in ELT: Schemas
J. Field 2008 Listening in the language classroom

Teaching and Learning in the

Language Classroom

Hedge T. 2000

Richards. Teaching Listening Speaking 2008

Ruth Gairns, Stuart Redman 2005 How to teach listening Natural English
Intermediate Book
Scrivener J, Learning Teaching 2005
Widdowson H.G 1983 Learning Purpose and language use. Oxford. Oxford University
press
JJ Wilson 2008 How to teach listening
XIE, X. (2005). The influence of schema theory on foreign language reading
comprehension. The English Teacher, Vol 34, pp. 65-75
Student textbooks

Cambridge IELTS 8, Cambridge books for Cambridge exams

IELTS Foundation Study Skills Rachel Roberts, Joanne Gakonga, Andrew Preshous
Natural English Student Book 2005 Ruth Gairns, Stuart Redman
Benjamin Werner Eichhorn

Helping pre-intermediate learners comprehend listening media using top down processing.

Page 9

Speakout Pre Intermediate Antonia Claire, JJ Wilson

Benjamin Werner Eichhorn

Helping pre-intermediate learners comprehend listening media using top down processing.

Page 10

Appendix 1
Pg. 179 Scrivener J, Learning Teaching 2005

Benjamin Werner Eichhorn

Helping pre-intermediate learners comprehend listening media using top down processing.

Page 11

Appendix 2

From the Teachers

book
2A Ss read the
questions.
Check/teach
pretends, go out
(with). Play the
DVD.
Teaching tip
Tel l Ss to focus on
answering the
question, and not
worry
about language they
don't understand.
They'll watch the
DVD again in Ex 3.
Extract from pg. 14
Speakout Pre
Intermediate
Antonia Claire, JJ
Wilson

Appendix 3

Benjamin Werner Eichhorn

Helping pre-intermediate learners comprehend listening media using top down processing.

Page 12

From pg. 7 - 8 IELTS Foundation Study Skills Rachel Roberts, Joanne Gakonga, Andrew
Preshous

Appendix 4

Benjamin Werner Eichhorn

Helping pre-intermediate learners comprehend listening media using top down processing.

Page 13

Extract from: pg. 20 - 21 Natural English Student Book 2005 Ruth Gairns, Stuart
Redman
Benjamin Werner Eichhorn

Helping pre-intermediate learners comprehend listening media using top down processing.

Page 14

Appendix 5
REMEMBER when preparing students for and IELTS listening section:
Always make sure that students consider the background information about the situation
and think about what might occur.
This means teachers should follow this staging process:
1. Get students to look at the title of the extract and consider the topic and possible
vocabulary. As shown below:

Benjamin Werner Eichhorn

Helping pre-intermediate learners comprehend listening media using top down processing.

Page 15

(pg. 39 Cambridge IELTS 8, Cambridge books for Cambridge exams)

2. Students should listen to the start of the extract when it states: You will hear a student
called Shona giving a presentation on her research report
Students should consider what people say in a research report, how a presentation is
organized, what a student might say about studying about this.
These questions will help the students to predict and infer any details from their prior
knowledge. This all happens before students look at the questions themselves.
ONLY THEN should you look at the questions and consider strategies that students can
use to answer the different questions and the individual key words in each questions.

Benjamin Werner Eichhorn

Helping pre-intermediate learners comprehend listening media using top down processing.