Lesson Plan: Using top-down and bottom-up processing to better understand

news reports

Katarzyna Malkowska

Date: 09/11/2017
Level: Upper-Intermediate
Length of lesson: 60 minutes
Lesson Focus: Skills- Listening
Systems included: Phonology
Number of students: 12
Time: 16:30- 17:30

Course overview

This General English Upper-Intermediate class is comprised of 12 learners studying

at an average level of B1 on the CEFR and a couple of very strong students at B2.

This is a voluntary group, and they have been attending lessons for two months now.

Classes take place from 3-6pm Monday to Friday and are taught by a tutor group of

four teachers completing their DELTA module 2 at IH Mexico.

Learner Profile:

Attendance can be somewhat irregular in the group, meaning that classes can

occasionally have as few as 3 learners. In terms of gender, 90% of the students are

male. Ages range from 22-55 years, but most learners are in their late 20s to early

40s. Overall, they get on very well and the wide scope of ages does not seem to

affect their classroom performance.

This is a monolingual group of learners from Mexico and Spanish is their native

tongue. Learners in this group are both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated.

1 |Katarzyna Malkowska LSA2- Lesson Plan

 In terms of classroom management, learners respond very well to a variety of tasks,

particularly to inductive activities, tasks focusing on pronunciation, complex

grammatical structures and lexical chunks. They get very engaged in real-work

speaking tasks, language lessons focusing on functional language (and use of role

plays here) and personalised language.

Amongst the topics that they find the most interesting are: relationships, movies and

culture, work, travelling and different cultures, personal stories and experiences, etc.

Even though the learners’ knowledge of meaning/use and form of grammatical

structures is wide they do struggle with accuracy of it while speaking fluently.

They are competent communicators with a wide range of vocabulary but their main

weakness is their pronunciation. Their intonation is usually flat, missing out high tones

and failing in producing and using stress-timing.

Details of Students:

Name Reasons for Strengths and weaknesses Learning Preferences/ Other comments
Age/Nationality learning style Interests
Occupation General In relation to
lesson
Felix Martinez He needs S: The student is S: good listening Main: He is interested  Very enthusiastic in
25 English to good at reading skills, interested kinaesthetic in learning about class and eager to
Mexican get a and listening in News other cultures, participate. This is a
Engineer scholarship sports and the student who is willing to
so he can W: Felix need to W: Might environment. do his best and brings a
work and improve his struggle with positive attitude to class.
study in a writing as he is sentence stress
foreign aiming for a high
country score on the IELTS
test and lacks the
mechanics for
proper sentence
construction

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Francisco He needs to S: He does well in S: great Main: He is interested  He is interested in
Morales present a writing activities, analytical kinaesthetic in scientific possibly teaching English
45 high score in group work, and strategies, he will and visual topics, arts and in the future.
Mexican TOEFL and fluency be able to humanities, and
Psychologist he likes contribute well reading the news
learning W: Needs to
English improve his
overall accuracy W: Problems
with tone units

*Enrique To get S: Reading and S: His listening Main: Films and books *He has been attending
*41 promoted/ writing skills are quite Visual and English lessons at the
*Mexican get a better good, he has Kinaesthetic centre for a long time,
*Lawyer job; W: Speaking, been exposed to works hard, good
Pronunciation, top down and working ethics
grammar bottom up
processing
before

W: He is not that
great with
analysing this so
he might time
some time
*Carolina She would S: Reading and S: she should be Main: She is interested She’s a lovely student
*25 like to travel Grammar able to follow the Visual in personalised but she does lack
*Mexican lot and find a lesson since she’s topics as well as confidence in speaking
* Student good job but W: Speaking and always very anything related English and she does not
she also Writing focused to travel and speak unless asked by
enjoys other cultures the teacher
learning W: lack of
English confidence in
taking risks and
guessing the
meaning

*Gerardo He is S: Reading and S: He takes risks Main: He is interested He’s a quite an active
*24 interested in Listening during lessons Kinaesthetic in topics related participant in the class
*Mexican other which will be an to science, but it is sometimes quite
*Biologist countries W: speaking and advantage during politics and difficult to understand
cultures and pronunciation today’s lesson, history his accent
he would he enjoys
like to meet analysing this
new people, and I believe this
lesson will be
particularly
interesting to
him

W: might
struggle with
tone units

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* Teodoro In order to S: Reading, S: his content Main: He is interested In his free time he does
*37 travel and he Speaking schemata, Visual in science and read in English, also
*Mexican is also W: Pronunciation background health related watches TV, he’s got a
*Teacher considering and writing knowledge will topics, also very positive attitude
becoming a be very useful nature towards learning and
teacher today) always contributes well
during lessons
W: tone units

*Eduardo He needs S: Confident S: Very chatty, Main: The most Very keep participant
*34 English for speaker and risk keen on sharing visual interesting topics during lessons, asks a lot
*Engineer work and taker, not shy his ideas, he will for him are: of questions
business be an active travel and
travel but he participant Business
also enjoys W: Listening,
learning Pronunciation, W: listening is
English Writing not his strong
skill, weak forms
(Ielts exam) and contractions

Luis He is S: He does well in S: This TTT will Main: He is interested Luis tends to easily get
30 studying reading require the kinaesthetic in scientific distracted in class an
Mexican English to comprehension application of and visual topics, arts and often takes his phone
improve his listening/reading, out during the lessons.
Academic humanities, and
(student) level, for his W: He has tasks that he reading the news He enjoys reading and
studies and problems with seem to enjoy working alone.
work subject verb
agreement and W: tone units
linking words to
help consolidate
his sentences at
an upper
intermediate
level
Jorge Ortiz Jorge needs S: Jorge’s reading S: knowledge of Main: Jorge enjoys Jorge is a solid B2 level
35 to improve and listening skills grammar and Visual having the learner. He has been
Mexican his English are fairly solid for phonology, hes opportunity to studying English for
for work, an upper always actively talk with peers about 2 years.
Accountant
travelling intermediate engaged during and especially
and meeting level. He displays discovery tasks with instructors.
people a wide lexical He enjoys
range. W: Jorge might traveling and
encounter meeting
W: He needs to difficulty with the foreigners.
work on stress words
pronunciation
and improve his
speaking
accuracy.

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Hector Guevara He needs S: He is fluent and S: He is expected Main: Hector enjoys He is eager to continue
34 English for accurate. He to do well during Visual learning English to improve all areas of
Mexican his job and pronunciation is as he is quite an and extracting his English. He would
travelling overall clear with analytical learner new language like to focus more on
Chemist
minimal L1 that enjoys and vocabulary specialized texts that will
interference discovery lessons from texts. help him at work. He has
been learning English for
W: He needs to W: His listening 5 years.
improve his skills are not the
listening as well strongest
as understanding
register and
applying it to
appropriate
contexts.
Alexia Castellan For Alexia, S: Alexia does S: Alexia is not Main: Alexia enjoys Alexia is one of the most
21 English is a well in all areas. the strangest Visual / working with advanced students in the
Mexican requirement She displays a when it comes to Auditory peer where she class. She has been
in order to special strength in analysing the has a change to learning English since she
Student
receive her grammar and language but share and was in high school
degree. She writing. since she’s one of consolidate her
likes the strongest in knowledge.
American W: Speaking and the class I believe
culture and listening she will be fine
would like to
live abroad W: content
someday words and weak
forms

Jesus Quintero Jesus would S: Reading, S: Main: Jesus enjoys Jesus has been learning
25 like to study listening and Visual reading English for seven years.
Mexican masters in writing. He is able W: He’s not that specialized texts He is also a solid B2
the near to produce well confident to and learning new learner.
Journalist
future and develop writing speak up so he vocabulary
English is a pieces. will have to push
requirement. himself a little
He also W: Although he more during the
enjoys does well lesson
reading for speaking it is the
pleasure in areas where he
English. needs to improve
most.

Main aim:

By the end of the lesson Ss will have improved their bottom-up listening strategies of

identifying tone units and prominence and top-down processing skills of using the

script and formal schemata as the ways of helping to predict the meaning in the News

Report. This will be done by means of Task-Teach-Task framework and guided in the

context of the News Reports.

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Ss will use schemata to make predictions about what they are going to hear in the

news; first in the Lead in and before they listen to the News.

Ss will have raised their awareness of prominence on the sentence level and will

have used it to identify tone units by first predicting which units should be given the

prominence and then listening to the News Extract.

Ss will be exposed to identification of structural features (the script) of the News

Reports by matching parts of the news with label names.

Subsidiary aims:

Learners will engage in a FP task in which they will put into practice the subskills

learned to listen to a text.

Promoting learners autonomy as students will be actively engaged in discovery

tasks.

Learning objectives: Ss will be better able to understand the News Report in real

life because they will have acquired and practised necessary strategies of using their

schematic and phonological knowledge to make listening comprehension easier.

Skills Analysis:

The aim of the analysis is to investigate how L1 speakers and proficient listeners use

certain listening subskills (Bottom Up and Top Down) to process input and interpret

meaning. The goal of the lesson will make learners aware of those strategies, as well

as putting them into practice. I will aim to illustrate, raise learners’ awareness, and

encourage their use of these subskills.

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Top Down versus Bottom Up

Bottom-up processing is “viewed as a process of decoding” (Richards, 1990:50). We

start with the message we received, which we analyse at successive levels of

organization – sounds, words, clauses, and sentences - until we reach the intended

meaning (Richards, 1990).

“Top-down processing, on the other hand, refers to the use of background knowledge

in understanding the meaning of a message. It may be previous knowledge about the

topic of discourse, it may be situational or contextual knowledge, or it may be

knowledge stored in long-term memory in the form of “schemata” and “scripts” – plans

about the overall structure of events and the relations between them.” (Richards,

1990:51).

Brown compares Schemata to “abstract, generalized mental representations of our

experience that are available to help us understand new experiences” (Brown, 2006:

2).

Structural Features

News Reports are divided into sections: The Hook (Headline), Who, What, Where,

How and a summary/ conclusion: (According to www.scales.me.uk)

Completing a London marathon, while

The Hook crawling on the ground in a gorilla suit,

seriously impressive

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 Tom Harrison aka Mr. Gorilla is

Who attempting the speed in

the name of a good cause.

41-year-old Harrison from Britain has

What been crawling on all fours for days now.

His try at completing

the London Marathon

Where

while wearing an ape costume has been

How described with many adjectives,

including bizarre

but it's all to raise money for the gorilla

organization, a group dedicated to

Summary saving the last of the world's great apes

from extinction.

A proficient listener uses formal schemata, which is the knowledge about the

structure of a certain text type (McCarthy, 2000) which helps him/her to predict in

what order they are likely to hear different news elements.

Phonological Features

“Tonic syllable is the most stressed syllable in an utterance- it is generally longer,

louder and carries the main pitch movement in an utterance” (Kelly, 2001:72).

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It is the speaker shifting and manipulating with the prominence because it is his/ her

choice of what to highlight (Underhill 2005): As seen in this example the tone units

are as follows:

// ComPLETING a LONdon MARAthon while CRAWling on the GROUND in a

goRILLA SUIT //

Prominent words are the ones that carry the most meaning, therefore they are very

important for the listener.

Timetable Fit:

In the previous session, learners worked on receptive skills with a particular focus on

both top-down and bottom-up processing subskills for reading the academic articles.

They also focused on the organisation of those articles. Learners have encountered

features of connected speech, e.g., weak forms, contractions, and sentence

prominence, in previous lessons. In this lesson, they will continue working with their

top down and bottom up subskills but the focus will be on the organisation, tone

groups and units and exploring how these can help them with understanding of the

News Reports.

In the lessons to follow, learners will explore how to employ these subskills in the

context of listening and reading tasks for the FCE exam.

Assumptions:

Learners' knowledge:

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 1. Most learners will be familiar with the source of the lesson’s audios, the News

Reports, giving them background knowledge and enabling the use of certain

content schemata.

2. They will be aware that there are different strategies of getting information

(top down and bottom up)

3. Learners know basic vocabulary on the topic of marathons

Learners' abilities:

1. Ss can use their schematic knowledge to make predictions.

2. They might struggle with identifying tone units and prominence.

3. It might be difficult for them to identify key words.

4. Many students are capable of engaging actively with tasks, so they will be

able to follow different stages of this lesson.

Learners' preferences and interests:

1. Learners will be motivated to learn about listening subskills to help improve

their listening, as the majority identified this skill as a weakness they wish to

improve.

2. Many of the learners watch or listen to the news every day, and they should

find this piece of news entertaining.

3. They like working in pairs, so they will be active and involved.

4. Unusual News Reports are quite popular, so the topic should be very relevant

to them.

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Anticipated Problems and Solutions:

1. PROBLEM: Some learners (especially non-auditory) might find it difficult to

distinguish between stressed and unstressed words in spoken English.

SOLUTION: Using a script showing prominence in a listening text, learners can be

asked to identify which words tend to be stressed using word class / part of speech

as the criterion. I will demonstrate and replay the recording if necessary and provide

extra examples if necessary.

2. PROBLEM: This might be a first encounter for students to have a listening lesson

‘that teachers them’ how to listen, very different from the ‘test listening’ lessons and

they might not understand the purpose of the lesson.

SOLUTION: I will be providing plenty of justification myself as well as trying to elicit it

from the learners so that they will understand and see the point of the activities

involved in the lesson.

3. PROBLEM: Coming from the background of Pre-While-Post listening lessons, it

might be challenging for the learners to engage in metacognitive processes, i.e.,

thinking about how their own cognitive processing works, in relation to listening.

SOLUTION: I will provide extra support and guidance for those learners who

struggle.

4. PROBLEM: The format and organisation of news reports here in Mexico might

follow different conventions therefore their schemata might not be transferable.

SOLUTION: I will use the presentation approach to make learners aware of the news

structure if I fail to elicit it from them.

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5. PROBLEM: Learners might have difficulty understanding the audio because they

are not accustomed to authentic recordings, at a careful colloquial speech.

Solution: I will explain that the point of the lesson is not on understanding of every

single word.

6.PROBLEM: Weaker learners might find the TTT approach to teaching listening a

little bit challenging.

SOLUTION: I will pair them up with the stronger learners

7. PROBLEM: There might be early finishers

SOLUTION: I will monitor, and ask them extra questions related to what they did at a

particular stage of the lesson

Materials/ Resources used:

 WB for the Lead In (Appendix 1) and prediction before the listening (Appendix 2), and

questions for the first listening (Appendix 3)

 Listening audios and scripts: (Appendices 4 and 5)

 Listening Test 1 (Appendix 4)

 Freer Listening Worksheet or Test 2(Appendix 5)

 speakers for audio

 Whiteboard/markers to write emerging language and clarifications, as necessary.

Commentary:

Rationale related to research:

As mentioned in my Background Essay, researching the topic of teaching listening

skills has been a real eye opener for me. It took me back to my own days of learning

12 |Katarzyna Malkowska LSA2- Lesson Plan

English and made me understand why so many language learners (including myself)

dislike listening activities and why they struggle with this skill the most. The problem

is associated with the issue of testing rather than teaching the skill (Field, 2009).

Unfortunately, most of the course books that we use in our classroom has been

designed to only test the listening, following the pre-while-post-listening lesson

framework.

I have decided to show my Upper-Intermediate group how they can become better

listeners and give them strategies to achieve that, since I believe that many of them

might not even be aware of the existence of such strategies.

Mastering both bottom-up processing, (identifying sounds to syllables, words and

phrases, etc.) and top-down, i.e. using general knowledge and the context to enrich

a comprehended message (Field, 2009), the way in which Proficient listeners

normally approach a text will be of a great benefit to the language learners.

Therefore, in this lesson learners will be working with phonological and structural

features of the news report (bottom-up) and there will be a series of predictions to

activate learner’s schemata (top-down) as this will allow listeners to anticipate much

of what they might hear and simply ease the listening comprehension.

I also agree that at higher levels, listening texts can and should be more authentic.

Taking a listening text from an authentic source, like the news reports, may prove a

bit of a challenge but it will also increase learners’ motivation, as this should be more

interesting and relevant in comparison to the graded listening tasks provided by

course-books and the activities that accompany them. This will give them the real

13 |Katarzyna Malkowska LSA2- Lesson Plan

purpose (ability to understand native speakers) and as Brown says: “If students

know why they are listening, they are more focused” (Brown, 2000:6).

Rationale related to learner needs / characteristics:

The choice of this lesson was closely related to my students needs and my own

observation of the group and the tasks that they really get engaged with. Their level

of English and their interests also played a big part as well. The majority of learners

consider listening to be at least one of their weaknesses. My belief of listening

playing the fundamental role in language acquisition since knowing how to decipher

the answer successfully is just as important as being able to produce the question

(Anderson & Lynch, 1988), led me to believe that learners would benefit most from a

lesson teaching listening skills.

News reports are authentic texts which are easily accessible for English learners and

this class will definitely find this topic relevant since many of them follow the news

reports daily. This, therefore, will be the topic they are familiar with and with have

background knowledge about.

Given this group’s higher language level and demonstrated desire for challenging

activities and their ability of critical thinking (the majority of them have higher education

background), I think Task-Teach-Task will be a good framework to follow. Not only

does it facilitate interaction and allow learners to see immediate results of their work,

it also allows the practice of the listening subskills followed by reflection on how these

were used to aid in comprehension.

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I aim for this lesson to be more student-centered, with plenty of elicitation and peer

learning. I will also provide them with the transcripts of the listening texts so to cater

for different learner’s styles.

Word Count: 597

DETAILED PROCEDURE:

TIMING STAGE AIM INTERACTION PROCEDURE

PATTERN
+5 mins Lead In / content to T-Ss Teacher asks SS to discuss:
activate schemata Ss-Ss
What do you know about:
Marathons?
Charity runs?
(Appendix 1)
3 mins Predictions- T -Ss Teacher shows the learners
activating the content Ss- Ss the heading of the news report
schemata they are going to hear. T asks
them to make predictions
about what they are going to
hear and also to write down 3
questions they the news will
answer (Appendix 2)
3 mins First mini test/ T- Ss Teacher plays the recording for
activate check Ss -Ss
student’s formal the first time. Learners listen
schemata
and answer the questions:

Who? Doing what?

Where is he doing it? How is

he doing it? Why is he doing it?

(Appendix 3)

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 +5 mins First mini feedback/ T-SS Teacher checks the answers
teaching stage/ to SS-T and asks the learners if they
raise awareness of noticed anything about these
Scrip/ Structure of answers, their sequence, if
the News Reports they were able to hear the
information in the same order
as the questions. T then elicits
the Hook / Headline, who,
what, where, how, summary /
and asks Learners if knowing
this will help them with
understanding.
3 mins 2nd mini test T-SS Teacher gives the learners the
SS- T transcript of the news they just
heard and asks them to put
lines in the text where they
think the speaker will pause
and take a breath. (Appendix
4)
+5 mins 2nd mini feedback/ T- Ss Learners listen and check if
teaching/ to raise Ss- T they were right. Teacher asks
awareness of the how many thought groups they
thought groups found, and if they think this is
helpful. Teacher points out that
in each thought group there is
the answer to the question
from the other task (Appendix
4)
2 mins 3rd mini test/ T- Ss Learners are working with the
SS- T same script and now they have
to mark content words / tone
units (Appendix 4)
+5mins 3rd mini feedback/ to T- Ss Learners listen to the text
raise awareness of Ss- Ss again and check the answers.
content words/ tone Teacher then asks if they
units noticed anything particular
about the words they marked
(they are the main pieces of
information, also answers to
previous questions)
+5 Option 1 T- Ss Learners are given another
mins Freer practice Ss -Ss piece of news, they listen first,
talk to their partner about what
they heard and then report to
the rest of the class. They
discuss what strategies they
used and if the text was easier
to understand
(Appendix 5)

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 +5 Option 2 Ss – T Depending on which problem
mins Another test focusing T- Ss the learners have, (structure or
on either structure or tone groups) the teacher will
tone units, if learners ask them to do the activity
had any problems at focusing on either of them or
any stage both if they encountered
difficulties (Appendix 5)
+5 mins Feedback/ wrap up T-S Teacher gives feedback by
To summarise the asking the learners about what
lesson aims they did in this lesson and also
asks the learners for their
feedback

Appendices:

Appendix 1 Lead In

Discuss with your partner:

What do you know about Marathons?

Charity runs

Appendix 2- Predictions before listening

Look at the Headline below, choose three words/ phrases that you think you

are going to hear:

Completing a London marathon while crawling on the ground in a gorilla suit

Write down three questions that you think the News will answer:

1)

2)

3)

17 |Katarzyna Malkowska LSA2- Lesson Plan

Listen and check your ideas.

Appendix 3 – First Listening

Anwers questions:

Who? Tom Harrison

Doing what? Running the Marathon.

Where is he doing it here? London.

How is he doing it? Dressed as a Gorilla.

Why is he doing it? To raise money for the Ape charity.

Appendix 4

Draw a line where the speaker stops and takes a breath

Completing a London marathon, while crawling on the ground in a gorilla suit,

seriously impressive, Tom Harrison aka Mr. gorilla is attempting the speed in

the name of a good cause. 41-year-old Harrison from Britain has been crawling on

all fours for days now. His try at completing the London Marathon while wearing an

ape costume has been described with many adjectives, including bizarre, but it's all

to raise money for the gorilla organization, a group dedicated to saving the last of the

world's great apes from extinction.

Answers:

//Completing a London marathon while crawling on the ground in a gorilla suit//

seriously impressive // Tom Harrison aka Mr. gorilla // is attempting the speed in

the name of a good cause // 41-year-old Harrison from Britain has been crawling on

all fours for days now // his try at completing the London Marathon while wearing an

18 |Katarzyna Malkowska LSA2- Lesson Plan

ape costume has been described with many adjectives // including bizarre // but it's

all to raise money for the gorilla organization // a group dedicated to saving the last

of the world's great apes from extinction //

Audio taken from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLC0W2EmD28

Do these pauses help the listener?

Appendix 5

Students are asked to mark the stress.

//Completing a London marathon while crawling on the ground in a gorilla suit//

seriously impressive // Tom Harrison aka Mr. gorilla // is attempting the speed

in the name of a good cause // 41-year-old Harrison from Britain has been

crawling on all fours for days now // his try at completing the London Marathon

while wearing an ape costume has been described with many adjectives //

including bizarre // but it's all to raise money for the gorilla organization // a

group dedicated to saving the last of the world's great apes from extinction //

Appendix 5 - 2nd listening.

Woman dies as storm hits Ireland

One person has died in Ireland as a result of storm Ophelia, as gusts of more than
100mph/h are reported of the coast of Ireland. Troops have been deployed to coastal
areas in the Republic. In what’s expected to be the most severe storm to hit Ireland
in half a century. A hundred and twenty thousand customers are without power

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across The Republic of Ireland and amber warning for the Northern Ireland, West
Wales, South West Scotland and Isle of Man is enforced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_Rcn-iO2qM

Answers:

// One person has died in Ireland as a result of storm Ophelia // as gusts of more
than 100mph/h are reported of the coast of Ireland. // Troops have been deployed
to coastal areas in the Republic // In what’s expected to be the most severe storm
to hit Ireland// in half a century // A hundred and twenty thousand customers are
without power across The Republic of Ireland // and amber warning for the
Northern Ireland, West Wales, South West Scotland and Isle of Man is enforced //

20 |Katarzyna Malkowska LSA2- Lesson Plan