6. Include both bottom-up and top-down listening techniques. Speech processing theory distinguishes between two types of processing in both listening and reading comprehension. Bottom-up processing proceeds from sounds to words to grammatical relationships to lexical meanings, etc., to a final "message." Top-down processing is evoked from "a bank of prior knowledge and global expectations" and other background information that the listener brings to the text. Bottom-up techniques typically focus on sounds, words, intonation, grammatical structures, and other components of spoken language. Top-down
techniques are more concerned with the activation of schemata, with deriving meaning, with global understanding, and I with the interpretation of a text. It is important for learners to operate from both directions since both can offer keys to determining the meaning of spoken discourse. However, in a communicative, interactive context, you don want to dwell too heavily on the bottom-up, for to do so may hamper the development of a learner's all-important automaticity in processing speech.
Six basic principles of teaching listening (J. Harmer) Principle 1. The tape-recorder should be of very good quality and the recording must be heard all round the classroom.
Principle 2. Preparation is very important: students should be engaged with the topic so that they really want to listen.
Principle 3. The teacher shouldn’t play a tape only once, but listening to it twice or more than 3 times can also be boring.
Principle 4. Students should be encouraged to respond to the problem raised in the recording, not just to the language. The author considers questions like ‘Do you agree?’ just as important as question about the used language.
Principle 5. ‘Different listening stages demand different listening tasks’. For the first listening the task is general and for later listening – more detailed listening.
Principle 6. A listening text should be fully exploited.
