What strategy do less proficient learners employ in listening comprehension : A reappraisal of bottom-up and top-down pr

1. What strategy do less proficient learners employ in listening comprehension? : A reappraisal of bottom-up and top-down processing Nobuko Osada Waseda University

2. 1. Introduction

3. 1. 1 Listening comprehension has received little attention. ? Mendelsohn(1994) 1) The concept about teaching listening comprehension explicitly. 2) Average classroom teachers 3)The traditional listening comprehension materials.

4. ? Rubin(1994) 1) five factors that affect listening comprehension 2) process, text, interlocuter, task, listener 3) process of listening seems more difficult to research.

5. 1.2 Top-down and Bottom-up processing Rumelhart(1977) Adams and Collins(1979) : ESL learners found Top-down and Bottom-up processing useful. Morley (1995)

6. 1. 3. The empirical study about listening comprehension is lacked among Japanese learners of English as a foreign language. 1) The Japanese learner's exposure to aural input tends to be limited. 2) The learning style :the Grammar Translation Method.

7. 1.4.The purpose of this paper To observe listening process of Japanese EFL learners, of less proficient ones. To clarify the tendency whether Japanese rely on bottom-up or top down processing in listening comprehension.

8. 2. Background of the study 2.1 Listening Strategy of Proficient Learners 2.2 Listening Strategy of Less Proficient Learners.

9. 2.1 Listening Strategy of Proficient Learners Peterson (1991) Proficient listeners use both bottom-up and top-down processing. Mendelsohn(1994) �Native speakers approach most listening top-down�

10. Bottom-up processing is operated unconsciously Peterson(1991) Wallace(1992) : �largely automatic in proficient users� 2) Bacon(1992) : � less cognitively demanding� * When learners are fully capable of decoding incoming language data.

11. 2.2 Listening Strategy of Less Proficient Learners 2.2.1 Over-reliance on bottom-up processing Peterson(1991) �less proficient learners are unable to activate top-down processing.

12. Why does it happen? Focusing on extracting information form text instead of focusing globally on the whole story. Mainly attempting to decode. 3) Trying to translate every word rather than understanding the message. The problem of too much reliance of bottom-up processing : :insufficient basis for comprehension

13. 2.2.2 Over-reliance in top-down processing The less proficient listeners rely on top-down processing. 1) Tsui and Fullilove(1998) �because less-skilled L2 listeners are weak in bottom up processing, they need plenty of contextual support to compensate for the lack of automized decoding skill�

14. 2) Learners heavily depend on top-down processing when they first encounter a foreign language and have no linguistic knowledge about it. 3) However, Ellis(1994) : They may pay little attention to the form of input, and not acquire anything new.

15. 3. Method 3.1 The Research Question 3.2 Participants 3.3 Listening Passages 3.4 Comprehension measures 3.5 Procedures 3.6 The research Hypothesis

16. 3.1 The Research Question To investigate the listening process of less proficient Japanese EFL learners. � Do they rely on bottom-up or top-down processing?� 3) The experiment a) 4 short passages were prepared. b) 2 different measures were taken. - the idea unit analysis - the analysis by local and global question type

17. 3.2 Participants 91 students (80 male, 11 female) at University level EFL students enrolled in a required course of Listening Comprehension The lack of input & little practice

18. Three ability group according to general listening proficiency - Upper-third (n=30) - Middle (n=31) - Lower-third (n=30) - they took class quiz, a term exam, TOEIC type of listening comprehension test. - there were significant differences between groups (ANOVA, Sheffee)