ELT365 · Day 156 — Bottom-Up Processing: Decoding the Signal

Idea — Bottom-up processing is the decoding work: recognising phonemes, words, and chunks in the stream of speech. Learners who struggle with connected speech need bottom-up practice, not just more listens.

Example — Dictation and ‘phoneme spotting’ tasks build bottom-up skill. ‘Listen and mark the stress’ is another. These are distinct from comprehension tasks.

Try — Design one bottom-up task for a text you already use: a short dictation, a stress-marking exercise, or a ‘how many words do you hear?’ count.

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