Listening for

Learning

Alexander Bacalja (PhD)

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 Outline
Learning in the disciplines
Why listening matters?
The ethics of listening
Orientations to Listening
Active Listening
Pretending to Listen
Learning from silence

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 Learning in the disciplines

Knowledge Language Literacy

Practices

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Learning in the disciplines

Green, 2012 5
 Listening as a skill for learning
Up to 80% if information is obtained through listening.
Common misconceptions:
a) listening is a passive process in which students must simply receive what is
being presented to them; and
b) listening is learned naturally; thus, specific instruction is not necessary
Listening is a highly active and complex process in which learners convert
spoken words into meaning in the mind (Nisbet and Tindall, 2008)
Listening is:
• An active process
• Requires attention and effort
• Making sense of what is heard
• Going beyond what is apparently said (Burbules and Rice, 2010) 6
Listening as a process

What we
Anticipating
hear

Processes of
selecting,
Monitoring interpreting,
inferring, or
extrapolating

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(Burbules and Rice, 2010)
Listening

What are you listening to?

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Listening in the Clinical Model
What is the
student ready to
learn and what
evidence
supports this?

What happened What are the

and how can possible
this be evidence-based
interpreted? interventions?

What is the
What is the
preferred
expected impact
intervention and
on learning and
how will it be
how will this be
resourced and
evaluated? 9
implemented?
 The Ethics of listening and
speaking
Paulo Freire and critical pedagogy.
• Who is empowered to speak?
• Who is expected to listen to whom?
• Do teachers speak “to” or “with” students?
• What are the implications for Democratic education?
• What role does silence place in the context of communication (Freire, 1998,
p.103-4)

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 Orientations to Listening

The receptive orientation The constructive orientation

Listening = receiving what the speaker Listening = constructing and representing
actually says meaning

The collaborative orientation The transformative orientation

Listening = negotiating meaning with the Listening = creating meaning through
speaker and responding involvement, imagination and empathy

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Rost, 2002
 Orientations to Listening
What orientation to listening would you
utilise to explain what students are doing
during this interaction?

How might the orientation inform the

conclusions you make and your likely
interventions?

For example:
• Receptive: receiving what the speaker
actually says
• Transformative: negotiating meaning 12
with the speaker and responding
Active Listening

What we
Anticipating
hear

Processes of
selecting,
Monitoring interpreting,
inferring, or
extrapolating
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 Active Listening
Three common elements in active listening strategies:

1. Non-verbal involvement

2. Refraining from judgment and paraphrasing the speaker’s message

3. Asking questions that encourage elaboration

Weger, Bell, Minei and Robinson, 2014

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 Active Listening
The Classroom Listening Strategy (Tindall and Nisbet, 2008, p.122)

Look like a listener (outward behaviours)

Choose to be a listener

Be a listener (think with, empathise with, respond to)

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 The context of active listening
Semiotic systems that inform listening and interpretation:
• Visual cues (exopheric) – holding up items as reference points
• Visual cues (kinesic signals) – body/ eye/ head movements
• Baton signals (hand and head movements for emphasis)
• Directional gaze (eye movement)

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 Pretending to Listen
Pretending to listen is different from not listening (Burbules and Rice, 2010)
Pretending to listen is indispensable, and perhaps, and inevitable part of the
practice of good listening.

1. Multitasking
2. Portraying
3. Misunderstanding
4. Coasting

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Pretending to Listen

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 Paying attention to Silence
Silence is a literacy practice.
In schools silence is assigned a limited number of meanings.
Silence holds multiple meanings for individuals within and across racial, ethnic,
and cultural groups (Schultz, 2010, p.2834)
Silence as a practice in a classroom community rather than solely in an
individual.
Two possible meanings of silence:
1. An assertion of power
2. A form of protection

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 Listening to silence as a critical
pedagogical practice
To appreciate the productive capacity of silence and how it can inform critical
classroom teaching, we must understand:
• How silence operates in different communities, including marginalized
students in classrooms
• Teachers’ role in silencing and the impact of their limited understanding of
silence
• How classroom structures impact opportunities for talk and interaction
• How talk is often a proxy for learning
• That silence creates space for the listener to participate in shared
communication
• The value of controlling our own urge to speak
• The value of affirming student curiosity.
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See you in the week 5
workshops
Remember, week 6
classes resume the
week beginning 13th
Sept

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 References
Burbules, N. C., & Rice, S. (2010). On Pretending to Listen. Teachers college record,
112(11), 2874-2888.
Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage. Lanham,
Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Green, B., & Beavis, C. (2012). Literacy in 3D: An integrated perspective in theory and
practice. Camberwell, Victoria: ACER Press.
Rost, M. (2013). Teaching and researching: Listening. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education.
Schultz, K. (2010). After the blackbird whistles: Listening to silence in classrooms.
Teachers college record, 112(11), 2833-2849.
Tindall, E., & Nisbet, D. (2008). Listening: A Vital Skill for Learning. International Journal
of Learning, 15(6), 121-127.
Weger Jr, H., Castle Bell, G., Minei, E. M., & Robinson, M. (2014). The relative
effectiveness of active listening in initial interactions. International Journal of Listening,
28(1), 13-31.
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