Prosiding Konferensi Internasional Ke-2 tentang Pedagogi Bahasa

Padang, 26 Desember 2022

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THE IMPLEMENTATION OF TOP-DOWN TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE

STUDENTS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION FOR VOCATIONAL SCHOOL
STUDENTS

Winda Daniati
(22178031)

Universitas Negeri Padang

email: wdaniati1985@gmail.com

Abstract

Improving listening comprehension skills is one of the urgent contemporary educational problems
in the field of foreign language acquisition. Understanding how L2 listening comprehension works
can have a serious influence on language pedagogy. The aim of this paper is to give brief explanation
about using top-down approach in teaching listening. Furthermore, it also highlights to what extent
can top-down techniques in teaching listening improve students’ listening comprehension. The
findings are discussed in terms of their application in developing top-down listening skills and
tested in listening comprehension tests. The materials of this article may be of use to those who are
interested in improving the existing listening comprehension teaching techniques.

Key word: listening, listening comprehension, top-down processing skill

Introduction
The role of English as one of the world’s international languages results in efforts to
find more effective ways of teaching it as a second or foreign language. In terms of teaching
and learning English, listening plays an important role as it is needed for communication
especially oral communication. For a considerable amount of time, the significance of listening
comprehension in the process of learning a second language was overlooked, the subject of little
research, and little pedagogical consideration. Nowadays, a listening portion is now included in
most exams such as TOEFL. TOEIC and IELTS.
According to (Field, 2010) , listening comprehension was not considered a particular
methodological issue. However, one of the most crucial aspects of oral speech communication is
listening comprehension. Adults listen for between 40 and 50 percent of the time they talk
(Gilman and Moody, 1984). The foundation for all other speech skills, including speaking, reading,
and writing, is listening, which is a leader among them all.
The problems that occur in listening comprehension are mainly caused by the limited
vocabulary and the limited listening strategies. Those problems also cause the failure of the
students on achieving the expected scores in TOEIC test as one of the compulsory tests for
vocational school students.
The most crucial problem in listening comprehension is the limited listening strategies
that make it difficult for them to comprehend the spoken text and survive in any English listening
test. Limited listening strategies also make the students cannot compromise with the unfamiliar
words.
 As listening is an important skill to be mastered, the teacher needs to help the learners to
solve the problems in listening comprehension which are limited vocabulary and limited strategy
on listening comprehension. There have been many techniques of teaching listening suggested by
the experts. One of the ways to improve listening comprehension is that teaching listening by
using top-down technique.

Literature Review
The nature of Listening
Current researchers (Batova, 2013) suggest that a listening lesson should be divided into pre-
listening, while-listening and post-listening stages. The pre-listening part of the listening lesson
prepares the learners for what they are going to hear and can comprise a prediction or activating
schemata stage, during which the teacher generates the learners’ interest in the topic and activates
their schematic knowledge. In the pre-listening stage, the teacher can also pre-teach the vocabulary that
she believes will impede with the learners’ overall understanding of the text.
In while-listening stage the learners focus their attention on the listening text and develop their
listening comprehensions skills. In this stage, learners complete tasks that develop their top-down and
bottom-up processing skills. They might, for instance listen to the segment of the story to check if their
prediction about the hero’s background was right. Top-down listening activities specific to the while-
listening part are listening for gist, when the learners have to listen to understand the main ideas, topic
and setting of the text and inferencing or inferring, as referred to by J ․J. Wilson, when learners make
deductions making analogies to the situations they can recognize (Wilson 2012:84).
In post-listening stage, the learners will be introduced to the target language inherent in the
listening tasks and activities, as well as develop their summarizing skills, for instance by sharing the
story from their own perspective or discuss its possible continuation with their partner.
Top-down skills in listening
In real-life listening, the students will have to use a combination of the two processes, with more
emphasis on top-down or bottom-up listening depending on their reasons for listening. However, the
two types of listening can also be practiced separately, as the skills involved are quite different. The
emphasis in EFL listening materials in recent years has been on developing top-down listening
processes. There are good reasons for this given that learners need to be able to listen effectively even
when faced with unfamiliar vocabulary or structures.

Top-down is a technique in teaching listening. According to (Dhamani et al., 2013) , top-down

technique is more concerned with the activation of schemata with deriving meaning with global
understanding, and with the interpretation of a text. Meanwhile schemata itself is defined as
background knowledge and global understanding (Tsui & Fullilove, 1998) . In order to activate students’
schemata to facilitate top-down processing, one of the activities below can be done in the classroom:

Table 1: Activities to activate top-down processing (Tsui, 1998)

Activity How to do Purpose

Brainstorming Call out related words or phrases to be These knowledge-oriented

put on the board activities aim to prepare students
Mind-mapping Write down words or draw simple by encouraging them to activate
pictures in a web stored schemata or acquire
Discussion Discussion similar or related issues based relevant types of world
on prompt questions or pictures knowledge, which will facilitate
Games Simple word or information-gap games top-down processing

Guide-questions Guess answers to question on the text

Picture/diagram Complete illustrations with simple

drawings or words
 Prosiding Konferensi Internasional Ke-2 tentang Pedagogi Bahasa
Padang, 26 Desember 2022
ISSN: XXXX-XXXX

Prediction Predict contents, characters, settings or

sequence of events
Elimination Identify the odd one out from a group of
pictures or words/phrases
Skimming Read a related short text for gist

There are several skills to be developed in teaching listening by using top-down technique. In
teaching listening, this technique is aimed to develop the students’ top-down processing skills in
listening comprehension. Brown (2011) lists the top-down skills as follow: (1) discriminating between
emotions, (2) getting the gist, (3) recognizing the topic, (4) using discourse to enhance listening
strategies, (5) identifying the speakers, (6) evaluating themes, (7) finding main idea, (8) finding
supporting details, (9) making inferences, and (10) understanding organizing principals of extended
speech. In addition, Richard (1992) states that in top-down technique, the instructor enables the
learners to make use their previous knowledge in analyzing and processing information which is
received (words, sentences, etc)

In sum, top-down technique promotes the use of background knowledge in understanding the
meaning of the utterance. Background knowledge consists of context, that is, the situation and topic,
and co-text, in other words, what came before and after. The context of chatting to a friend in a casual
environment itself narrows down the range of possible topics. Once a topic has been established, our
knowledge of the kind of things that can happen on that thing comes into play and helps us to ‘match’
the incoming sound signal against our expectations of what we might hear and to fill out specific details.

The common classroom activities in developing top-down listening skills are by asking students
to predict the content of a listening activity beforehand, maybe using information about the topic or
situation, pictures, or key words and encouraging them to use their knowledge of the topic to help them
understand the content (Ardini, 2015) . This is an essential skill given that, in a real-life listening
situation, even advanced learners are likely to come across some unknown vocabulary. By using their
knowledge of context and co-text, they should either be able to guess the meaning of the unknown
word, or understand the general idea without getting distracted by it (Swan & Walter, 2017) .

Other examples of common top-down listening activities include putting a series of pictures or
sequence of events in order, listening to conversations and identifying where they take place, reading
information about a topic then listening to find whether or not the same points are mentioned, or
inferring the relationships between the people involved.

The present study

(Lestari et al., 2021) did research on the teacher’s difficulties in teaching listening at MAN 1
Palembang . The results of this study showed that the difficulties faced by the teacher’s in teaching
listening at MAN 1 Palembang were related to as follows: (a) the students' psychological factor; (b)
students’ background knowledge; (c) students’ attitude; (d) lack of students’ vocabulary; (e) teaching
aids or media; (f) the material; and (g) method of teaching listening comprehension. In addition,
(Bekaryan, 2016) did research on Developing Learners’ Top-Down Processing Skills in Listening, the
research addresses ways of developing learners’ top-down processing skills, such as making predictions
about the target text, guessing the context and using contextual clues to infer meaning. It highlights
listening skills are crucial not only to learning but real life as well. This fact encourages researchers to
compare them to life skills. The frustration and anxiety, learners often experience when facing listening
tasks can block their understanding and impede their further learning. Hence, it seems reasonable to
encourage learners to develop top-down listening strategies reliant on the background knowledge in
understanding the message.
Furthermore, (Wang, 2020) also did research on academic listening for the past 30 years from
published research articles found available online. The paper then reviews the three models of
listening comprehension processes, namely the bottom-up processing, the top-down processing, and
the interactive model that illustrate how information is processed while language learners listen to
spoken language One listening model that suits students of all levels while doing academic activities
seems unworkable, the paper suggests a rhizomatic approach to help language learners construct their
own rhizomatic personal learning environments to resolve any individual challenges and develop their
listening skills at their own pace and for their own taste.

METHOD
Participants
In this study, the data was collected from participants enrolled in a public vocational school
majoring tourism. There were 25 students among 100 samples chosen through group sampling. As the
teaching of English in the chosen school used leveling system, the students were grouped based on their
ability in English which was shown out by the result of their placement test. The students who got
higher marks were placed into class A in which the English ability of the students were considered to be
above average. Meanwhile, the students who got lower scores in the placement test were placed in class
D with the English ability were below average. The participants of this research were the students of
class B who was considered to have average level of English ability. This class was chosen because it
was one of the classes which has problems in listening comprehension. The result of the placement test
showed that there was huge gap between their results in reading section and listening section.
According to (Norton, 2018) , action research is a group activity. It is a kind of research which
purposed to solve the problem and it also produces a specific knowledge of teaching learning.
Therefore, this research can not be done alone by the researcher. Instead, it needs the involvement of
collaborative teacher’s help during the observation, data analysis and also during the treatment.

Data collection
The data of the research were collected before and after the treatment was done. They are in the
form of field note, interview and listening comprehension test. The information written in the field
notes were based on the observation which was done by the collaborative teacher in every meeting of
the treatment.

Data Analysis
Analyzing the data was done since the first time when the field orientation was done as the kind of
research was the classroom action research
1. Field notes
The results were discussed with the collaborative teacher. Any comments and notes on the field
notes were considered as improvement to the treatment given.
2. Interview
The information which was obtained from the interview was used for the improvement of the
treatment to see the students’ comments on the treatment given whether or not it improves their
listening comprehension.
3. Listening Comprehension test
The data, which was obtained from each listening comprehension test was used to reflect the
students’ listening comprehension before and after the treatment. The data in each test was
compared to each other to see whether there was significant progress that the students have in
listening comprehension.
 Prosiding Konferensi Internasional Ke-2 tentang Pedagogi Bahasa
Padang, 26 Desember 2022
ISSN: XXXX-XXXX

Results
This research was conducted in two cycles. Each cycle consisted of four phases called plan,
action, observation and reflection. Every cycle took four meetings. The duration of each meeting was 45
minutes. The result of the first cycle was used as consideration in order to make revisions and
improvement for the second cycle.
As stated in the previous chapter, the observation was done in preliminary study. Based on the
result of the observation, it was found that most of the students were difficult to understand the
instruction which were given in English. As a consequence, most of the times, after the teacher gave
instruction in English, she needed to translate into Bahasa Indonesia.
Having interviewed some students, it was found that many of them got difficulties in
understanding English speech for many reasons. Firstly, the fact that they applied bad listening
strategies such as focusing on the meaning of every word that the speaker said instead of trying to
understand the intension of the speaker as a whole. Besides, many of the students confessed that their
limited vocabulary tended to make them difficult to understand English speech. When the listening
comprehension test was held, many of them got unsatisfying score as shown in figure 1.
In order to see whether the scores of the students’ test 1 were good or not, we need to look back
the expected scores that the students should achieve. As stated at the previous chapter, the vocational
school students are graded into three continuous level namely novice for the first grade, elementary at
the second grade and intermediate level at the third grade. Based on the vocational school curriculum,
each grade of vocational school has its own range of TOEIC scores.
The participants of this research were at the elementary level who’s ideal TOEIC scores ranged
305-450. It means that before the students starting their study at the elementary level, they should have
TOEIC scores at least 305, and achieve 450 at the end of the year.
Meanwhile in order to reach the TOEIC score 305 as the minimum score, the students should be
able to answer the question of the test at least 37% of 200 questions in TOEIC test which means 37%
correct answer for reading section as well as listening section, Thus, the minimum score for the
listening comprehension section in TOEIC for elementary level was 170.

the scores of listening test 1

up to 170
16%

160-170
20%

less than 160

64%

less than 160 160-170 up to 170

Figure 1: The result of test 1 of listening comprehension test

The pie chart deals with the result of the students’ listening test 1 which was held before the
treatment given. The scores were divided into 3 categories which are less than 160, between 160-170
and up to 170. The scores were than compared to the expected score 170. Thus, it was hoped that most
of the students were at the second category whose scores ranged from 160 to 170. Unfortunately, the
result shows that only one-fifth of the participants achieve the scores between 160 to 170. The chart
also highlighted that majority of the students with the percentage of 64% have difficulties in listening as
reflected by the result of the test. Only 16% of the participants are able to surpass the expected score.
Classroom action research was done to solve the students’ problems in listening and improve
their ability in listening which was shown by the improvement of students’ score in the listening test 2
which would be held after the treatment given. In order to help the students improving listening skill,
top-down technique would be applied by giving some activities which were based on top-down
approach in listening.
Cycle 1
1. The implementation of cycle 1
a. Plan
i. Implementing top-down technique in teaching listening by considering the students’
level
ii. Designing activities of top-down techniques
iii. Preparing listening materials
iv. Preparing lesson plan
v. Preparing field notes form that will be used by the collaborative teaching while
observing the action
b. Action
i. Developing top-down processing skills by doing listening activities derived from
top-down technique

Table 2: Activities to activate top-down processing in each day

Day Listening activities derived from top-down technique

ii. 1 Discriminating between emotions Explaining the
Recognizing the topic and main idea importance of the
technique
iii. 2 Identifying speakers Encouraging the
Evaluating themes students to use the
techniques
3 Looking at pictures and number them in sequence anywhere and
while listening to the dialog anytime
Read a list of key points and then number them in
iv. Giving them
sequence while listening to a talk
chance to practice
the technique
4 Predict what people say before listening to
v. conversation Coaching and
Guess the meaning of headlines before listening to guiding them in
news broadcast about the same news their use of the
technique during
practice activities
vi. Conducting listening comprehension test

c. Observation
The observation was done by the researcher and the collaborative teacher. It was aimed to
collect data about to what extent the teaching of listening using top-down technique can
increase the students’ listening comprehension. Field notes were used in this part.
 Prosiding Konferensi Internasional Ke-2 tentang Pedagogi Bahasa
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d. Reflection
Based on the conclusion from the third phase, the plans for the next cycle was revised
2. Findings within cycle 1
a. Qualitative findings
The qualitative findings were obtained after analyzing the result of field notes and
interviews within cycle 1. In terms of field notes, there were four things were observed,
namely classroom progress, students’ participation, students’ errors and incident or
remarks during the teaching learning process. Related to the classroom progress, the things
which were observed were the class atmospheres, the amount of time, listening activities,
response toward media and material given.
Based on the result of field notes, from the first meeting to the fourth meeting within
cycle 1, it was found some classroom progress. It was indicated by the positive changes in
class atmosphere, the interaction, the students’ positive response toward media and
material.
Furthermore, the result of interviews, it was noticed that at the first time the teacher
explained about the technique, they were confused about it. However, when the treatment
was done and the teaching learning process was held, they finally have better understanding
about improving listening skill through top down technique which was aimed to activate
top-down processing skills in listening.

b. Quantitative findings
The quantitative findings were obtained after analyzing the result of listening
comprehension test. The result of listening comprehension test which was held at the end of
cycle 1 was called test 2. The result was then compared with the result of test 1.

the result of listening test 2

less than 160

up to 170 less than 160
36% 36% 160-170
up to 170
160-170
28%

Figure 2: The result of listening test 2

The pie chart is about the result of listening test 2 which was held at the end of cycle 1. The
results were divided into three categories which are less than 160, between 160 to 170, and up to 170.
As stated at the previous part, the students are expected to be at the second category which was in the
range of 160-170. In fact, the chart shows the number of students whose scores less than 36% is as big
as the students whose scores up to 170. More than one-fourth of the participants got scores in the range
of 160-170.
In order to see the progress of the students before and after the treatment was given in cycle
one, the comparison of the tests’ results are seen in the bar chart below.
 the comparison between test 1
and test 2
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
less than 160 160-170 up to 170

listening test 1 listening test 2

Figure 3: The comparison between test 1 and test 2

The bar chart above shows the comparison of results in test 1 and test 2. The blue bars show the
students’ achievement in test 1 while the red bars show the achievement in test 2. It highlighted the
number of students who got scores less than 160 decreased significantly. It means that there is a
decrease in the number of students who got low scores in the test. Furthermore, the significant increase
was shown in the third category in which the students got scores up to 170 or surpass the expected
score of 170. For the second category, the number of students who achieve the expected scores
between 160 to 170 also increase.

Cycle 2
1. The implementation of cycle 2
a. Plan
By considering the result of the tests, field notes and interviews in cycle 1, some revisions
were made toward the plans.
b. Action
The action in tis phased was similar to the action in the previous cycle by making
some adjustment in listening materials’ difficulties.
c. Observation
The activities in this phase are similar to those at the previous cycle.
d. Reflection
After the action was completed, the result was analyzed and discussed. The result of test 2,
second interview and field notes decided whether continuing the research to the next cycle
or not.
2. Findings within cycle 2
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the progress of listening tests' result

300

250

200

150

100

50

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

scores listenig test 1 scores listening test 2 scores listening test 3

Figure 4: Comparison between test 1 until test 3

The line chart above deals with the performances of each student in all listening tests from test 1
until 3. It highlighted the improvement of each students’ scores from test 1 until test 3. The graphic
above shows that the students average scores progress in each test from test 1 until test 3.
In line with the findings, the information from the field notes and interviews showed positive
portrait in terms of classroom progress, students’ participation, students’ errors and notes about
incident and remarks. It highlighted that the teaching learning process in cycle 2 became much better
comparing to the process in cycle 1. It was indicated by the classroom atmospheres, the interaction, the
students’ response toward the media and material given.
Related to the result of interview which was done at the end of cycle 2, it was found that the
students agreed that they felt improvement in their listening comprehension after the treatment was
given. Besides, they also stated that they enjoy listening class as there were various activities in
listening and also various tasks followed.

DISCUSSION
Some theoreticians and researchers have described and defined top-down technique in their
books or in the form of article and journal. Based on their theories and findings, it can be concluded that
the application of top-down technique in teaching listening toward the appropriate level of the students
can improve their listening comprehension.
In relation to this research, it was found that teaching listening using top-down technique can
improve the students’ listening comprehension. It is indicated by the increasing of the average score of
the students’ listening comprehension tests during the two cycles. In other words, teaching listening by
using to-down technique can improve the students’ listening comprehension. It is confirmed by the
average scores of the students’ listening comprehension tests which gradually increased from cycle 1
until cycle 2.
The students’ average scores were increased from the test 1 to the test 3. While in the test 1, the
students’ average score was less than 150, in test 3 it becomes up to 200. It indicates the students’
improvement in listening comprehension after the treatment given. Beside that, based on the result of
interview and field notes, it was also shown that the students’ respond positively toward the
application of top-down technique.
Thus, based on the result of listening comprehension test, interview and field notes, it can be
concluded that teaching listening by using top-down technique can improve students’ listening
comprehension which was shown out by the increases of the students’ scores in listening
comprehension tests within cycle 1 and cycle 2.
Furthermore, based on the result of the interviews, the students confessed that among the four
parts of listening comprehension tests which was adopted from TOEIC proficiency test, part 1 become
the easiest part of the test while part 3 becomes the most difficult one. It was supported by the result of
field notes which showed that the students more enjoy working with the pictures rather than working
with the dialog.
This fact is in line with what has been stated by (Dhamani et al., 2013) who stated that beside
listener, speaker and the content of the message, the visual support also influence the listening
comprehension. Thus, the students enjoy listening while looking at the picture. Beside that, having
picture to guide them in listening, also make students more ready for the incoming oral text because
pictures are helpful in activating schemata that will ease them understand the spoken text as stated by
(Field, 2010) , working with the picture and diagram is helpful to facilitate top-down processing that
finally help them understand the oral text.

Conclusion
The main findings of this research is that the application of top-down technique can improve the
students’ listening comprehension significantly. It can be seen through the improvement of the result of
students’ listening comprehension test. Beside that, the result of field notes and interview also showed
that the students became more active in teaching learning process. It happens because of the various
activities which were derived from top-down technique which develop their top-down processing skill.
Furthermore, the result of interview also indicates that the students viewed the technique to be helpful
in understanding spoken language.

Recommendations
The top-down approach to teaching listening comprehension is proved to be effective in
developing listening strategies. The result of the research has revealed the importance of
background knowledge in the top-down process of speech perception. Effective L2 materials
teaching listening skills should provide L2 learners with guided listening practice in
accordance with their proficiency level. The findings described in the article can be of use in
developing listening tasks and exercise aimed at developing top-down listening strategies.
 Prosiding Konferensi Internasional Ke-2 tentang Pedagogi Bahasa
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ISSN: XXXX-XXXX

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