1. Top Down and Bottom Up Approach in Teaching Language Skills
BILC Professional Seminar, Slovenia 2012
Ibrahim Ghanwi, Slovakia

2. Meaning Conceptual The meaning of a word on its own. Propositional
The meaning of a sentence on its own.
Contextual
The meaning a sentence can have only when in context.
Pragmatic
The meaning a sentence has only as part of the interaction between the writer and the reader.

3. Comprehension Pronunciation significant sounds or phonemes Grammar
morphology and syntax
Pragmatics
pragmatic comprehension (misunderstandings)
Semantics
vocabulary, text (written or spoken) comprehension

4. Everything begins here

5. We should create good conditions for development

6. Bottom up approach
Bottom-up processing, so called because it focuses on developing the basic skill of matching sounds with the letters, syllables, and words written on a page.
Progressing from small or subordinate unit or units to a larger or more important unit, just as in the case of planting seeds.
It is an approach to a problem that begins with details and works up to the highest conceptual level.

7. Top down approach
is a top-down processing, which focuses on the background knowledge a reader uses to comprehend a written text.
is an approach of/or relating to a hierarchical structure or a process that progresses from a large holistic unit to smaller, detailed subunits.
is an approach to a problem that begins at the highest conceptual level and work down to the details.

8. TD and BU approach to teaching reading
„The writers encodes thought as language and the reader decodes language as thought.“
(Kenneth Goodman, 1988)
The purpose for reading a text:
Person´s interest
Academic duty
Motivational purpose
Teachers should help their students to adopt the new purpose as their own = to motivate students to read for pleasure
The context = create a scenario

9. The phases of reading comprehension
Pre-reading
While reading
Post reading

10. Pre-reading (top down approach)
Brainstorming
Activate previous knowledge of the topic
Think, write, discuss
Key vocabulary (associations)
Structure, outline, draft
Prediction
How new information fits with the previous knowledge
Providing information to the teacher about students knowledge
Bridging student´s knowledge with text content

11. The person´s identity Factors influencing knowledge

12. While reading Efficient and effective reading Reading strategies
The reader interacting with the text
(both approaches in the construction of the meaning of the text; fluent guessing)
Word and structure recognition
(decoding process)
Reading meaningful chunks
Conceptual knowledge

13. Factors increasing reading comprehesion
Vocabulary development
Parts of speech, roots and endings, suffixes and prefixes, compound words.
Extensive reading- data base of reading and listening materials.
Reading speed
Discourse knowledge
Rhetorical organisation of texts
Genre-based approach (writing)
Language functions – descriptions, narrations, compare vs.
contrast, cause vs. effect, fact vs. opinion etc.
Cohesives devices (substition, ellipsis, referencing etc.)
Locating discourse markers

14. Post reading
Knowledge confirmation
Post-reading questions
Evaluating student´s adequacy of their text interpretations
Increasing student´s knowledge

16. Interactive approach
Teaching-learning process demands both approaches to be applied
Both approaches complement each other, they are not alternatives
The orientation and the purpose determine which approach is being applie

17. Questions, please

18. Websites about the topic

19. Thank YOU for Your attention !