2)c SLA approaches: bottom-up vs top-down

Question 0

Explain the terms “skill getting” and “skill using” in relation to the bottom-up approach.

Answer 0

• Rivers, 1980s
• skill getting: type of practice that helps students learn grammatical structures
• skill using: students use learned structures in communicative activities designed to focus their attention on meaningful interation

Question 1

Explain the “bottom-up” approach to SLA.

Answer 1

• traditional/historical format in US
• students analyze & learn grammar rules / vocabulary first
• later, practice using them to communicate

Question 2

Explain these three categories of SLA drills: mechanical, meaningful, and communicative

Answer 2

1) mechanical: complete control of the response and only one correct way of responding
2) meaningful: still control of the response, may be more than one way to respond, learner must understand stimulus
3) communicative: learner provides new information, no right or wrong response except in terms of grammatical correctness

Question 3

Why has decontextualized mechanical practice been challenged as “not beneficial for foreign language acquisition and should be discarded from instructional practice?” (Wong & VanPatten, 2003)

Answer 3

• key role of meaning making and social interaction in SLA
• focus on MEANING rather than focus on form
• SLA standards do NOT promote skill getting - skill using approach
• SLA = lots of practice…. but meaningful, purposeful and engaging

Question 4

What are ways teachers can use the “bottom up” approach that follows a textbook series but still incorporate more engaging, communicative content?

Answer 4

• include additional standards-based activities/practice/info/videos
• incorporate ‘synthesis’ activities that integrate more than one communicative mode and address a particular goal/standard
• limit # of mechanical, decontextualized textbook exercises; replace/revise to bring meaning and provide opportunities for negotiation of meaning and student interaction

Question 5

Explain the “top-down” approach to SLA.

Answer 5

• learners are presented with ‘whole’ text (story, song, video, etc.), then guided through comprehension of main ideas, explore ideas through interaction with others, and then focus on specific details/linguistic structures (vocab/grammar)
• resists reducing language to word lists, verb conjugations, discrete grammar points, or isolated linguistic elements

Question 6

How is the “top-down” approach seen in action in the classroom?

Answer 6

• learners manipulate language to communicate thoughts using higher-level skills (ex: predicting, drawing conclusions)
• thru info-gap activities & joint problem-solving w/teacher & classmates, learners negotiate meaning & demonstrate performance before competence (participate in a complex task with assistance)

Question 7

What is the purpose of “top-down” instruction and learning?

Answer 7

• give student a clear/whole picture of how the words and structures they must learn are contained in a context that makes these elements meaningful through the overall message
• this allows for strategic guessing, where meaning is constructed from the whole and does not represent a linear process that focuses on one aspect at a time (ie: bottom-up approach)

Question 8

Who do you implement the “top-down” approach?

Answer 8

• present a “text” (story, authentic recording, realia) that contains unit vocabulary and grammatical themes, for the purpose of helping learners understand its meaning while discussing it
• as students attend to the initial context, they are given tasks for demonstrating understanding
• teacher leads class discussion so students may negotiate meaning, indirectly learning vocabulary and grammar that later becomes the focus of more directed and personalized practice
• students may actively use grammar forms before being taught explicitly, and use technology to access authentic materials/culture

Question 9

Why is a “top-down” processing approach to SLA more effective than a “bottom-up” approach?

Answer 9

• more research is needed to confirm, but evidence indicates that T-D students may be able to acquire language at a higher and more successful rate than through the traditional B-U approach
• B-U doesn’t offer enough time for contextualized practice since it is spent on analyzing small, separate pieces
• T-D holds promise in promoting standards-based, sociocultural approach to language acquisition

Question 10

What is the difference between “contextualization” and “context?”

Answer 10

• connecting exercise sentences w/same situation/theme
• context for exercise in form of info concerning ppl/act/descriptions
• combining cultural aspects w/lang practice w/in the exercise
• this type of contextualization of mechanical drills is not the same as creating a context, which is the topic/situation of a communicative act that are necessary for understanding

Question 11

Explain the “coverage model.”

Answer 11

• txtbk defines content of course; teacher’s role is to cover it
• students march thru txtbk, pg by pg in a valiant attempt to traverse all the factual material w/in a prescribed time
• negative term, when content is “covered” student is lead thru unending facts, ideas, readings etc w/ no overarching ideas, issues, and learning goals to inform study