TOP DOWN APPROACH

                                        TOP DOWN APPROACH

      Teachers have an important job which is teaching. Teaching is a serious business where the investments are humans and the indregents are knowledge. Transferring knowledge to students is crucial and difficult. Teachers have an important role at this point and they use some methods and approaches in the classroom. Top-down approach is one these approaches. This essay focuses on top-down approach and refers to the benefits and limitations of the top-down approach.

         Teachers have limited time to pass along the knowledge to the students. A lesson generally ends in fifty minutes and the teachers have to transmit the knowledge in this limited time effectively at least to 15 students in developed countries and this number may rise up to 60 students in developing countries. 

         Top-down approach is widely used in all over the world among teachers. In top-down approach the students use their background information to predict the meaning of the issue that they are going to read or listen. The aim is recognizing and understanding the whole picture. The complexity is understood by capturing the whole idea (top) and conquering it by breaking into smaller parts (down). The process continues and those parts are broken into parts and this gives the chance to clarify what is needed to be done. In each step of refinement; the new parts become less complicated and, therefore easier to figure out. The emphasis in top-down approach is that; students bring meaning to the subject based on their experiential knowledge and background. There are some limitations and benefits of top-down approach like all other methods and approaches.

        Top-down approach is well known and used by many teachers because of its effectiveness. Top-down approach gives the opportunity to the students to understand the gist. Students become aware of what they are doing, the purpose of the issue and they capture the weaknesses and strengths of that issue. The students comprehend the subject with its main idea thus; they feel confident during the lesson. As a result of this, students become more productive and think intellectually. This process makes the students to benefit from critical understanding of the issue. For instance, the teacher may give an authentic reading article and practice the students’ reading skills. The students would firstly focus on the main idea of the article by using their background knowledge and cover the schema. This process would give students the opportunity to focus on the deeper meanings with the understanding of the main idea. Another benefit of the top-down approach is the clarification of the new items, which makes learning task easier and less intimidating. Students explore the new items clearly without sticking to linguistic features which detains anxiety towards the subject. In second language teaching; student anxiety is a common problem. Second language learners usually face with anxiety which causes problem in learning the target language. Anxiety occurs when students do not know the issue and generally they are frightened from new topics. Top-down approach prevents students from anxiety. The students feel confident and comfortable when they are aware of what they are doing and have understood the main idea. Top down processing is also time effective. In top down approach, it is easier to get straight to the point and this enables time saving in the lesson. Timing in teaching is also an important issue for the teachers. The teachers need to teach in a limited time. Although they prepare lesson plans the application is different and difficult. Teachers have to make sure that the students understood. This sometimes may lead the teachers to digress from the lesson plan and the lesson may become less effective. Top-down approach makes students to stick easily to the point and understand the issue. Students cover the points easily and the teachers easily manage the timing. Also saving time in the lesson enables teacher to do more practices in the lesson. More practice brings more understanding and more understanding brings more production. Top-down approach develops the automatic processing. The students internalize the top-down process in time by experiencing and applying then, they automatically understand the gist and the schema of the subject easily and quickly. There are also some limitations of top-down approach.

      Top down approach has got some limitations like all the other methods and approaches. Top-down approach is used in listening and reading. In reading ’’ Top-Down processing is the opposite, where a global meaning of the text is obtained, through “clues” in the text and the reader’s good schema knowledge. This is often associated with a good reader, who does not read word for word but quickly and efficiently’’ Bernardo (2009). Top-down approach is beneficial and applicable with more advanced students who have background knowledge and who can read fluently. However, top-down approach may not be useful with students who are not good at reading. Those students need to read word by word to understand the text. In a classroom environment the levels of the students could be the same but their skills are different and the top-down model may not be beneficial for all the students. Another limitation is that; all students may not have enough knowledge for the topics and they may not be able to make generations or predictions. The students may make guesses or predictions but this will take much more time than it would take to recognize the words. This will cost time loss which is very important in the classroom environment. In listening ‘’ Top-down view suggests that the listener actively constructs (or, more accurately reconstructs) the original meaning of the speaker using incoming sounds as clues’’ (Richards and Renandya, 2002). Top-down approach is applicable and beneficial to the students who are at advanced level and good at listening in the second language learning. However; the students at a low level may not benefit from top-down approach in listening because those students may be able to use incoming sounds as clues because of their low level.

  Similar to all other teaching methods and approaches, top-down approach has got weaknesses and strengths. In spite of the criticisms to the limitations of top-down approach, it is used by teachers commonly because of its benefits to the second language learners .

Related Video:

 Related Questions:

   1- Do you think top down approach is beneficial in EFL and ESL classrooms?

   2- Would you use top down approach in your classrooms in the future?

   3- How can you provide a communicative learning environment by using top down approach?

  

   References:

Richards, J. C, & Renandya, W. A. ’Methodology in Language Teaching’’ Cambridge University press (2002).

Berardo, S. A, ‘’ The use of Authentic Materials in the Teaching of Reading’’ The Reading Matrix, vol. 6, no. 2, (September 2006).