Z. M. Bobur nomidagi andijon davlat universiteti chet tillar fakulteti ingliz tili va adabiyoti kafedrasi

Bottom up listening, on the other hand, happens when we understand language sound by sound or word by word, with less use of background knowledge.
Most of the time, your students will combine some bottom up and top down listening to make sense of what they hear and perceive in the world around them. Sometimes, however, it can be helpful to offer them strategies suited to the specific type of listening you are working on. The more cognizant students are about each type of listening and the strategies it embeds, the better equipped they will be to do good listening work.
The strategies in this lesson can be used in the classroom to work with different kinds of listening.
You may have heard the terms top-down and bottom-up in relation to listening. These refer to ways in which someone might process a listening text. They are often talked about as two separate strategies that can be used by students to understand when they listen, but what exactly do they mean?
Top-down strategies focus on the ‘big picture’ and the general meaning of a listening text. We use our background knowledge of a topic and our expectations of what we might hear to help us understand or fill in any gaps.
In general conversations with your friends in your first language, you are likely to use top-down listening skills automatically because you know your friends really well, you know their opinions about things as well as information about their daily lives, so you will use this as a context for any conversations you have with them.
In noisy situations, like a bar or nightclub, you will do this even more – you will ‘guess’ the content of a lot of the conversation, based on your knowledge of the topic, your friends and what has already been said. It doesn’t matter that you may not hear many of the words, you can still understand the main gist of the conversation.
Bottom-up strategies, on the other hand, focus on listening for details. The listener relies on the language in the message and focuses on understanding at a word level. Listeners have to decode the combination of sounds, words and grammar to create meaning.
For example, imagine you are about to travel by car to a friend’s house that you have never visited before. Your friend gives you directions over the phone. In this scenario, you are listening for very specific details in a certain order which are important to you to find your way, in this case the functional language and vocabulary of giving directions.
When we listen to our first language, we probably employ more top-down strategies, but for a second language, especially in the early days when we are low level, it is quite likely to be the other way around. In real-life listening, we will use a combination of the two processes, with more emphasis on one or the other depending on our reasons for listening.
So how can our knowledge of these two strategies relate be used to listen successfully in the IELTS exam? Well, in the Listening test, you are given time at the beginning of each section to read ahead. You should use this time to analyse the questions and identify the reason for listening. Ask yourself the questions:
-What kind of listening text is this (eg. a conversation between friends, college lecture, telephone dialogue, etc)?
-What kind of task do I have to complete (eg. gapfill, complete a map, match speaker with topic, etc)?
Then think about the top-down strategy. Use the key words in the question (often nouns or verbs) and any visuals to predict the specific topic and context. Ask yourself:
-Who might be speaking?
-What will they be talking about?
-What kind of information will they give?
Think about what you already know about t how people interact in these situations, or any other knowledge you have about the subject matter. Use these predictions to activate your vocabulary, which means be aware of the words, phrases and collocations that you know relating to this specific topic.
Now think bottom-up. Identifying the task will help you decide what words you should be listening for. Look at the grammatical context of the question to see what type of word is required. While you are listening, you should listen for:
-signposting words to help follow the order of information
-synonyms
-pronouns as references
-time references
-examples of paraphrasing
Be wary of negatives. Don’t assume a particular answer is correct just because you hear the words. There may be an auxiliary verb in there that gives it a negative meaning.
Successful listening depends on the ability to combine these two types of processing. In preparation for the IELTS exam, practise listening as much as you can and keep in mind the ways in which you are listening. Use sample IELTS listening tests and focus on the tips mentioned above. Also expose yourself to as much English as you can with TV, films, radio, lectures and online videos. Aim for the level of English you are currently at, or just slightly higher – there is no point in listening to things if you don’t understand any of it. Find resources on the internet that suit your level and gradually increase difficulty.