TOP - DOWN PROCESSING IN LISTENING FOR ENGLISH FOREIGN LANGUAGE (EFL) STUDENTS

Abstract

Possessing listening skill for English Foreign Language (EFL) students is not an easy task. Most students are struggling on sound and sentence clarity to get the meaning of the spoken messages. This article illustrates a process that can help students arrive at the meaning without totally focus on the details of sounds. The process is known as top-down processing. In the process, the students’ background knowledge of the topic is much more involved. How the process looks like is illustrated through how it works in intensive, selective, and extensive listening activity.