Language in content instruction - LICI Project

LICI Handbook
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finding supporting details
making inferences
Bottom-up listening
On the other hand, listeners also use 'bottom-up' processes when they use linguistic
knowledge to understand the meaning of a message. They build meaning from lower level
sounds to words to grammatical relationships to lexical meanings in order to arrive at the
final message. Listening comprehension is not either top-down or bottom-up processing,
but an interactive, interpretive process where listeners use both prior knowledge and
linguistic knowledge in understanding messages. The degree to which listeners use the
one process or the other will depend on their knowledge of the language, familiarity with
the topic or the purpose for listening.
Bottom up skills according to Peterson (1991), and Brown (2001) are listed below:
discriminating between intonation contours in sentences
discriminating between phonemes (i.e. the smallest phonetic unit in a language that is
capable of conveying a distinction in meaning)
listening for word endings
recognizing syllable patterns
being aware of sentence fillers in informal speech
recognizing words, discriminate between word boundaries
picking out details
differentiating between content and function words by stress pattern
finding the stressed syllable
recognizing words with weak or central vowels
recognizing when syllables or words are dropped
recognizing words when they are linked together in streams of speech
using features of stress, intonation and prominence to help identify important
information
Why listening?
Listening has been a “neglected” skill in the field of language teaching and learning until
lately when we learnt that listening and reading which had been called “passive” and
“receptive” skills actually are active, complex psycholinguistic processes. The old view of
listening as a passive receptive process has been replaced by a more recent constructivist
view: listening is an active process of interpretation in which listeners match what they
hear with what they already know (Vandergrift, 1999).
Listening is a key factor in a number of language learning theories and models, such as
Krashen’s Input Hypothesis/ Comprehension Approach and Asher’s Total Physical
Response. Both of these approaches draw on early first language acquisition, which is
characterized by long silent periods during which the child is mostly listening to ambient