We have already discussed the role of schemas in comprehension in Section 5.1.5. This helps explain why familiarity with the topic of any talk eases comprehension: the required schematic knowledge is more easily accessible.

The same goes for a topic which, even if not familiar, is of personal interest to learners. What we mean by having a 'personal interest' in a topic is that we have an existing framework of knowledge into which to fit the new information. We also have the motivation to invest more attentional resources in comprehension.

Where interest and familiarity don't necessarily exist, you - the teacher - need to try to find ways of generating them. (See Section 5.3.1 Tasks for top-down processing.)

However, as the old saying goes, familiarity can breed contempt. Familiarity with a topic can lead to existing schematic knowledge being overgeneralized, leading to erroneous understanding.

For example, when Long (1990) explored the impact of topic familiarity on the comprehension of her learners of Spanish, she found that

• familiarity with the topic of a listening passage (rock music) was associated with increased comprehension; but ...
• familiar schemas were sometimes mis-applied. Some learners - even the more proficient - ignored linguistic cues, making unjustified assumptions on the basis of their existing knowledge.