چکیده:
Listening is regarded as an interactive process involving decoding of information. This study was launched to find out the impact of bottom-up (BU) and top-down (TD) techniques on Iranian lower and upper intermediate learners’ listening comprehension. We selected a total of 120 participants in six intact classes, three lower intermediate and three upper intermediate. The proficiency level of the groups was further verified and groups at each proficiency level were randomly assigned as a BU group who were engaged in BU activities during the pre-listening stage of each lesson throughout the eight-session treatment, a TD group who performed TD activities, and a control group (CG) for whom no pre-listening attention focusing activities were used. The One-way and Two-way analysis of variance of the listening post-test scores indicated that the lower-intermediate BU group and the upper-intermediate TD group did significantly better compared to the other groups. The findings suggest that BU processing activities were more effective at lower intermediate level while TD processing activities played a more facilitative role for upper intermediate participants. The findings support the interaction between proficiency level and information processing techniques and imply a number of pedagogical implications.
خلاصه ماشینی:
BU mechanisms involve perception and segmentation of different elements of the sensory input from phonemes to syllables, words, phrases, and sentences, rapidly and involuntarily shifting attention to salient features of potential importance (Yanti, 2004); they rely heavily on the listener’s knowledge of the target language (Vandergrift & Goh, 2012) and thus seem to be intricately and delicately interwoven with proficiency level.
Tentatively, it might be hypothesized based on the research findings that overemphasis on BU processing mechanisms might be demanded at lower levels of proficiency and during the pre-listening stage of a listening comprehension lesson to assist beginner to pre-intermediate learners expand the required linguistic knowledge needed for deciphering meaning.
2. Literature Review Owing to the raise of interest in listening comprehension since the beginning of the new millennium, applied linguists have scrutinized the effect of various strategies that might be described as either TD or BU in nature on foreign language learners’ reading and listening comprehension (Bozorgian & Pillay, 2013; Danial & Polloway 2005; Navalpakkamand & Itti, 2006; Rahimi, 2012; Vargas & Gonzalez, 2009; Vidal, 2004; Xie, 2005) and explored the problems they face when listening in terms of new interpretations of listening comprehension (Chen, 2013; Masalimova, Porchesku, & Liakhnovitch, 2014; Nowrouzi, Tam, Zareian, Nimehchisalem, 2015).
The findings are in line with numerous previous studies (Batoa, 2013; Fuente, 2012; Kurita, 2012; Navalpakkam & Itti, 2006; Rahimi, 2012; Vandergrift, 2013; Vidal, 2004; Yantis, 2004) which asserted the significance of data-driven and conceptually- driven information processes in language learning and comprehension.