Noticing the multidimensionality of active listening in a dialogic classroom

An enduring problem in English curriculum and pedagogy is that listening and speaking, as intricately interconnected interactional practices, are often treated separately. In classroom discussions, attention is predominantly drawn to vocalisation as the key element of dialogue. Furthermore, listening as a silent embodied activity, is often taken to be either passive or a behavioural performance to be demonstrated; yet understanding what this means in practice remains not well understood by teachers. This article considers how different responses demonstrate listening actively in classroom lessons. Drawing on data gathered in practitioner action research conducted in twelve primary classrooms where teachers deliberately sought to promote dialogic pedagogies, lesson transcripts are examined to further understand how listening is connected to recipiency, meaning-making and co-production in talk-in-interaction in the multipartied conversations experienced in lessons. Conversation analysis delineates five interaction responses practices displaying activeness in listening. By drawing attention to the intricacies and multidimensionality of listening in classroom discussions, how the different dimensions align with a dialogic ideology are considered. It is argued that teacher knowledge of these realms of listening will assist teachers to recognise ‘active’ listening among and between.