Meaning-Focused Input: Making the Most of the Reading and Listening Content of VOICES
In-Service Training Materials
Introduction: This blog contains content, activities, and support material for the Teacher Development In-Service Training Day at Centro Cultural Costarricense Norteamericano on November 21, 2025.
Session Goals:
- Understand the importance of meaning-focused input (MFI) in second language learning and its role in the instructional design of the Voices series.
- Connect key theoretical principles (MFI, interactive processing, and cognitive load management) with practical implications for planning receptive skills activities with the Pre-While-Post cycle.
- Explore a variety of activity options for each stage of the PWP cycle for reading, listening, and video activities.
- Develop and share an outline for a receptive skills activity sequence following the PWP framework and justify your design choices.
Guiding Questions:
- What is MFI and how does it support students' language development?
- Where can we find opportunities for students to engage in MFI within the Voices unit cycle?
- How can we develop an effective and practical pedagogical sequence using the receptive skills materials in the Voices books?
Table of Contents
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Warm Up: Case Study Analysis
Click your assigned link below and follow the instructions in the document.
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Theory Input: Key Concepts in Receptive Skills Instruction
What is Meaning-Focused Input (MFI)?
MFI is "learning through listening and reading where the learner's attention is on the ideas and messages conveyed by the language" (Nation & Newton, 2009, p. 1).
Where can we Find MFI in the Voices Unit Cycle?
MFI has a promenent place in the unit design of voices:
- Intro: Nat Geo Explorer Video
- A: Reading and Critical Thinking Skills
- B: Grammar Point 1 through Listening or Reading
- C: Listening Skill and Grammar Point 2
- D: My Voice Video
- E: Reading for Writing
How does MFI Support Language Development?
- Comprehensible Input: "We acquire ... only when we understand language that contains structure that is 'a little beyond' where we are now" (Krashen, 1982, p. 21).
- Develop Receptive Skills: (Voices A, C)
- Introduce New Language in Context: (Voices A, B, C)
- Model Appropriate Discourse: (Voices D, E)
- Build Schema & Promote Engagement: (Voices A, B, C, D, E)
- Stimulate Language Production: (Voices, A, B, C, D, E)
How do Learners Process Input?
In contrast to speaking and writing, which are productive skills, reading and listening are receptive skills. They are also sometimes erroneously referred to as passive skills, but this represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the complex mental processes involved in interpreting written and spoken input. What are these mental processes? Learners make use of both linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge in order to accurately process the meaning of messages they hear or read (Buck, 2001). The combination of bottom-up and top-down processing is known as interactive processing (Hegelsen, 2003).- Bottom-Up Processing: We build understanding of what we read and hear by combining letters and sounds to form words, words to form phrases, phrases to form sentences, etc. In other words, we use our knowledge of the language to make sense of the input.
- Top-Down Processing:We build understanding of what we read and hear by using background knowledge (schema) or assumptions about the situation or context, cultural information, purpose of the text, and others.
- Interactive Processing: In practice, input is understood through a combination of both kinds of processing. When contextual knowledge is limited, more information needs to be gathered from bottom-up processes. When top-down knowledge is greater, lesson focus on decoding the language in the input is needed to successfully anticipate and confirm the speaker or writer's message. Effective MFI instruction should account for and support both kinds of processing.
What Makes L2 Listening and Reading Difficult?
A key concept in receptive skills instruction is the topic of cognitive load. One of the challenges of second language listening is that students’ cognitive processing capacities can easily become overwhelmed by factors such as speed, complexity, length, and accent of the recording, lack of sufficient context, as well as the nature of the tasks they are asked to complete. The Centre for Educational Statistics and Evaluation (2017) summarizes the work of Sweller (2010) on Cognitive Load Theory, which describes processing limitations of working memory.
- Intrinsic Load: This is the inherent processing difficulty of a particular concept to be learned or task to be completed by students. We can’t change the difficulty of a listening passage, but we can SIMPLIFY the intrinsic load by breaking the audio into discreet, more easily digestible chunks with specific processing tasks for each one.
- Extraneous Load: This is the unnecessary processing difficulties caused by the way information is presented to students that distracts their focus during the listening task. We can REDUCE the extraneous load by creating simple, easy to follow instructions for listening tasks and by ensuring that students understand what information they need to extract from the passage before they listen.
- Germane Load: This is the optimal level of challenge or cognitive effort needed to learn a concept or make sense of a text. The idea of listening instruction is not to eliminate all effort required of students but to ENHANCE the germane cognitive load through the careful design of support materials and listening tasks that promote effective processing of the passage.
- Effective receptive skills instruction is cognitive load management.
Exploring PWP: Activity Options for Designing Instruction
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Pre-Reading-Listening-Watching: The purpose of these activities is to activate or build contextual knowledge needed to apply top-down strategies, clarify or “pre-teach” essential unfamiliar terms from the text to aid their bottom-up processing, and generate a personal connection with the topic and motivation to engage with the text in the next stage. The majority of a reading or listening lesson should involve students engaged in processing the text, so keep the Pre stage brief!
Vocabulary Practice: Clarify essential vocabulary from the text through a variety of activities. Keep this section short and avoid the temptation to teach every unknown word or you risk removing all the challenge.
Dialect or Accent: Voices includes regional varieties of English as well as plenty of L2 English users with distinct accents. Identify a potentially challenging pronunciation feature and play a small clip as a preview to help students "calibrate their ears" before they listen to the full audio.
- Example: Notice how Federico pronounces the words in bold. Is it similar to how a native Spanish speaker might pronounce them? Why or why not?
- My health / and stay healthy / but when you add the hot water
- Example: Discuss the questions with a partner.
- When you travel, what do you usually do to stay healthy?
- Have you ever ignored your body's signals (like hunger, thirst, or tiredness)? What happened?
- What is the hottest or coldest place you've ever been? How did you take care of yourself there?
Agree / Disagree: Activate background knowledge and stimulate a personal connection.
- Example: Read each statement. Decide if you agree, disagree, or it depends. Then tell your partner why.
- I'm usually very healthy.
- You should always force yourself to eat at mealtimes, even if you are busy.
- Kids are easier to take care of than adults.
- Exercise has to be hard to be effective.
- People often forget to take care of themselves when they're working.
Analyze an Image: Activate background knowledge and stimulate a personal connection.
- Example: Look at the images and discuss the questions. Give reasons for your answers.
Rank / Classify: Have students rank or classify a list of items related to the theme of the text.
- Example: Rank the following habits from most important to least important for staying healthy while traveling or working long hours.
- Drinking enough water
- Sleeping well
- Eating regularly
- Protecting yourself from the sun
- Taking breaks
- Exercising
- Variation 1 - Words from Topic: We are going to hear a man describe what he does to stay healthy at work. Write words or phrases related to the topic that you predict you might hear in the audio. Write them in Spanish if you don't know the English word and we will translate them together.
- Variation 2 - Topic from Words: Here are some phrases you will hear in the audio. What do you associate with them? What images come to your mind? What do you think the audio will be about?
- Heatstroke, IV drip, staying healthy while traveling, magic drink, exercise habits; snakes, bears, crocodiles and spiders!
Digital Tools to Enhance Engagement: Anyone of the above strategies, and many others, can be made more engaging with the use of digital tools that promote collaboration, self-expression, and interaction.
- Example 1 - Mentimeter: CLICK HERE
- Example 2 - Genial.ly: CLICK HERE for a schema activation activity.
- Example 3 - Genial.ly: CLICK HERE for a vocabulary building activity.
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While-Reading-Listening-Watching: The purpose of these activities is to help students make sense of the text by giving them specific tasks to complete. This achieves several purposes. First, the tasks provide a purpose for reading or listening. If students know what they need to get from the text, you and they will know if they are successful. Second, it guides students to help them focus on important ideas and supports their processing of potentially challenging content. Finally, the tasks should require the students to read or listen to the text multiple times but for a different reason each time. These repeated interactions help students construct an adequate understanding of the text.
Listening Outlines: (LISTENING) Students need support to process lengthy audio and video content and one way to do that is to divide the content into more manageable segments, each with their own processing tasks.
- Example: CLICK HERE to see a listening outline developed for Voices Book 3, Unit 9, Lesson C. Part 1 Audio: CLICK HERE, Part 2 - Audio: CLICK HERE.
- Recommended Flow:
- Whole Class Preparation: Teacher and students read instructions for tasks in segment one.
- Individual Listening and Response: Teacher plays the segment and students complete the tasks alone.
- Collaborative Sharing: Students compare and discuss their responses with a partner.
- While Class Checking: The teacher elicits responses from the class and determines whether a second playthough is necessary.
- Example: CLICK HERE to access an interactive listening activity developed for Voices Book 3, Unit 5, Lesson X.
- Variation 1: Create one jigsaw grid.
- Variation 2: Create varied jigsaw listening tasks.
- Variation 3: Create a smaller jigsaw for one section of the listening.
Jigsaw Reading: (READING) Similar to the interactive listening, jigsaw readings make students responsible for reading a specific section of the text. Then they share the main ideas of their section in their own words with their peers in a brief speaking activity.
- Suggested Speaking Tasks:
- Share a summary of the main points in your own words.
- "Teach" 1-2 interesting words or phrases from your text.
- Identify similarities and differences between texts.
- Give your opinion or share an additional point, example, or detail not in the text.
- Choose Appropriate Texts: Some texts from the book seem "ready made" for jigsaw activities because they have multiple parallel sections of similar length and format with different content.
Check for Differences: (READING / LISTENING) Develop an AI created outline summarizing the key points in the text but request it to include several prominent errors. Once students have achieved a reasonable degree of comprehension of the original text, have students read the AI summary and identify the differences.
- Example: Review this "AI Summary" of the audio. Identify and correct any mistakes you find.
- Federico is in good health. He's only gone to hospital twice. One time it was because he got heatstroke in Australia. They had to give him an IV to rehydrate. Because of this experience he says not to ignore your body. He takes better care of his kids than he does himself. When they are sick, he serves their medicine in ice cream.
Outline Rearrange: (READING / LISTENING) Have AI generate an outline of the main points of the text. Present the points in disorder and have students organize them.
- Example: Arrange the statements so they match the order of the original text:
- Federico got heat stroke from dehydration at work.
- He talks about a home remedy and how he helps his kids.
- He describes the typical traveler illnesses and how he takes care of himself.
- He reflects on the importance of exercising regularly.
- He shares a lesson he learned from work trips.
Points and Counterpoints: (READING) Give students a list of statements containing information that was not in the reading but is thematically related to different paragraphs. Statements should either add to or present a counterpoint to information in the paragraphs. Students read and decide where they could be inserted into the original text.
- Example: The following sentences were not in the original text. Read each one and decide which paragraph it could best be added to.
- Some travelers use electrolyte tablets to avoid dehydration on long flights.
- Not everyone believes that sugary drinks are a good solution when children are sick.
- Many people forget to warm up before exercising, which can lead to injuries even if the exercise is simple.
- Some expert say heatstroke can happen even when temperatures are mild, especially if a person hasn't slept.
- Not all kids dislike medicine. Some enjoy the taste of flavored syrups.
Quick Search Rally: (READING) After students have gained an adequate understanding of the text, break them into groups for a competitive rally with simple scan and identify tasks that require them to quickly interact with different sections of the text multiple times.
- Example: Work with your group to find the following. The first group to identify all the correct answers is the winner.
- Paragraph 1 - A word that means "hungry"
- Paragraph 3 - The most expensive ingredient
- Paragraph 2 - Name of the reporter
- Paragraph 2 - Two adverbs
- Paragraph 3 - The cause of the problem
- Paragraph 4 - One topic of disagreement
- Paragraph 1 - A place name
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Post-Reading-Listening-Watching: The purpose of these activities is to help students formulate a response to the text they just read or listened to in order to ensure the appropriate meanings have been constructed. Post activities can be of three types: response and evaluation, metacognitive reflection, and stimulus for production. Reading and listening in real life is not a quiz. We engage with texts to gain understanding for a specific purpose or for enjoyment. Students should be asked to react to and evaluate the ideas presented in the text. This empowers them as independent users of English and gives them a voice to express their opinions about the content of the lesson. They can also be asked to reflect on difficulties they experienced, strategies they used to complete the tasks, and how they may adjust those strategies in future listening or reading situations. Finally, the text can provide inspiration and motivation for a follow-up speaking or writing activity.
Personal Reaction and Evaluation: Always give students the chance to express their opinion and experiences related to the ideas expressed in the text.
- Example:
- Do you think Federico takes good care of his health when he's working? Why or why not? What would you do differently in his situation?
- Which of Federico's health tips do you agree with the most? Is there any advice he gives that you would not follow?
- Federico talks about balancing work with health habits. What strategies help you stay healthy when life gets stressful or busy?
- Federico says he's more careful when his kids are with him. Do you think people generally take better care of others than themselves? Why?
Metacognitive Reflection: The Post reading or listening stage can also be an opportunity for students to reflect on their performance during the previous tasks, identify challenges they experienced, and strategies they applied.
- Example:
- What parts of the listening were hardest for you? Why do you think that is?
- What strategies did you use to find the answers to the task?
- How can you apply what you did today with future listening activities inside and outside the classroom?
Speaking Task Ideas: One of the main roles of input in the language classroom is to stimulate productive language use. There are many speaking activity types you can create (roleplay, debate, creative presentation, etc.) inspired by the reading or listening.
- Example: CLICK HERE to review a selection of sample speaking tasks.
Hands-On: Develop your Lesson Outline
Pre-Reading-Listening-Watching: The purpose of these activities is to activate or build contextual knowledge needed to apply top-d
Wrap Up: Session Takeaways
Seven Principles for MFI Instruction: This session has reviewed theoretical support and practical ideas for developing meaning-focused receptive skills lessons. The following principles will help you continue exploring this topic in your classes.
- 1) Development over Testing: Teaching and developing students' listening and reading skills is NOT the same as testing them. Tasks should encourage meaning-focused processing of and response to the ideas of the text, not simply surface level recall of ideas.
- 2) Task before Text: Always give students tasks to do while processing the text. Never have students read, listen, or watch before sharing and clarifying the specific task they must complete.
- 3) Multiple Interactions: Help students construct the meaning of the text through multiple encounters, each with a different task.
- 4) Time on Task: In a Pre-While-Post cycle, the While stage should get the most time. The Pre stage should be just long enough to provide necessary context, motivation, and expectations of the While and Post stages to come. Don't overdo it!
- 5) Alone and Together: Students should have the chance to process the input individually as well as through pair discussion and collaboration.
- 6) Yeah, So What?: Students must be given the chance to react to and evaluate the ideas presented in the text to develop their "voice" as independent users of English.
- 7) Speaking through Listening and Reading: Receptive skills can be taught and practiced in a communicative way with plenty of opportunities for authentic communication before, during, and after.
Minimum Standards: Because of time limitations, we do not always have the ability to develop extensive Pre-While-Post tasks for every listening, reading, and video we encounter in the textbook. Even if we must move quickly, the following checklist can ensure you are adequately supporting students.
- Pre: Preparation for Engagement
- Activate background knowledge of the topic.
- Establish a personal connection.
- Address potential language and cultural issues (if necessary).
- While: Support for Engagement
- Include multiple interactions with the text.
- Each interaction has a separate task.
- Include both individual processing and collaboration.
- Post: Extension of Engagement
- Express personal reaction or evaluation of ideas in the text.
- Text serves as a stimulus for production (speaking or writing).
References
Buck, G. (2001). Assessing Listening. Cambridge University Press.
Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation. (2017). Cognitive Load Theory: Research that Teachers Really Need to Understand. NSW Department of Education.
Hegelsen, M. (2003). Listening. In D. Nunan (Ed.), Practical English Language Teaching (pp. 23-46). McGraw Hill.
Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Pergamon Press Inc.
Nation, I.S.P. & Newton, J. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking. Routledge.
Sweller, J. (2010). Element interactivity and intrinsic, extraneous, and germane cognitive load. Educational Psychology Review, 22(2), 123–138. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-010-9128-5
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