* TEACHING RECEPTIVE

SKILLS

M.A. Martha Liliana Torres Guerrero

 HOW WE READ AND LISTEN

* Understanding a piece of discourse involve much more than

just knowing the language

* To know some information permits us to predict, identify key

words, phrases = pre-existing knowledge

* Foreign language lerners are dealing with, have to work

doubly hard to understand what they see or hear.

* to know what kind of text is (genre)

* Key words and phrases= prediction

 REASONS FOR READING AND LISTENING

Instrumental Pleasure

Some kind of Doing for fun help us to

identify and not ignore genres
utilitarian or with students
instrumental purpose
 TOP-DOWN

Example : Asking learners to predict what a newspaper article might be about from the headline or
first sentence will encourage them to use top-down processing on the article.
 BOTTOM-UP

Example

Asking learners to read aloud may encourage bottom-up processing

because they focus on word forms, not meaning.

The remains of my friend’s mom have been identified, 34 years after she
became one of the 120,000 Colombians who are missing.
I guess I’m supposed to report the news that Gloria Isabel Anzola’s
remains have been recovered after more than three decades, but this is
personal. In fact, Colombia’s entire peace process is getting increasingly
personal.
Over the past 11 years I have gotten to know a lot of people through my
work. The majority are victims, others were soldiers, paramilitaries or
guerrillas.
Juan Francisco wrote me in 2009 because he wanted to tell you about his
mother, who disappeared in 1985 sometime between M-19 guerrillas
storming the Palace of Justice in Bogota and the military retaking control
of the building.
TOP DOWN PROCESSING

General view of the reading or listening passage by details,

background knowledge is important to predict the meaning .
* is thought to be an effective way of processing language; it makes
the most of what the person brings to the situation.

BOTTOM UP PROCESSING

Individual words and phrases, it is not very efficient.

There is an interaction between them sometimes it’s the individual detail
that help us understand the whole
DIFFERENT SKILLS

The use of them depends on what we are reading or listning for.

A. Identifying the topic: good readers and listeners are able to pick up the topic of written or spoken text
very quickly with the help of their our schemata.
B. Predicting and guessing: trying to predict what is comming , some assumptions or guess the content, their
inicial glance or half-hearing, after that ideas can be confirmed or readjusted.
C. Reading and listening for general understanding:
Not stopping for every word, not analysing everything.
Use skimming (running your eyesover a text to get a quick idea of the gist of a text) before plungging into the
detail.
D. Reading and listening for specific information.
We only concentrate when the particular item that interestes us come up (scanning) look for specific
information.
E. Reading and listening for detailed information
Read or listen in a concentrated way.
F. Interpreting text: Succesful interpretation depends to a large extent on share schemata.
«You are in a non-smoking zone» Schemata + knowledge of the world to expand the idea
Problems and solutions

Pre-teaching vocabulary
Extensive reading and listening
1. Language Authenticity
Sentences length
Percentage of unknowe words
TOPIC AND GENRE

• Choose the right topics.

• Create interest
• Activate schemata (knowledge)
• Vary topics and genres
COMPREHENSION TASKS

• Testing and teaching.

• Appropriate challenge
NEGATIVE EXPECTATIONS

• Manufacturing success.
• Agreeing on a purpose.
HANDS ON WORK

• Choose a news paper article or a song and

propose the strategies you will implement to
work it on with your students.
LEVEL:
POPULATION:
TOPIC:

OBJECTIVE:
STRATEGIES:
RESOURCES:
Bibliography

Harmer, J(2013) The practice of English

language teaching.
Voronina Anna (2014) Developing receptive skills
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/top
-down