investigaing norms of lstenin in clasrooms

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Investigating Norms ofListening in ClassroomsPauline Sangster

a& Charles Anderson

a

aSchool of Education, University of Edinburgh,

Available online: 22 Jul 2009

To cite this art icle: Pauline Sangster & Charles Anderson (2009): Invest igat ing Normsof Listening in Classrooms, International Journal of Listening, 23:2, 121-140

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THE INTL. JOURNAL OF LISTENING, 23: 121140, 2009Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1090-4018 print / 1932-586X onlineDOI: 10.1080/10904010903014459

HIJL1090-40181932-586XThe Intl. Journal of Listening, Vol. 23, No. 2, May20 09: pp. 00The Intl. Journal of Listening

Investigating Norms of Listeningin Classrooms

Investigating Norms of Listening inClassroomsSangster and Anderson

Pauline Sangster and Charles AndersonSchool of Education

University of Edinburgh

Previous research into listening has tended to focus on individual processing rather

than on how sociocultural contexts mediate the nature and quality of listening. This

article draws on a study involving observations of listening lessons conducted by

ten English teachers regarded as skilled practitioners, interviews with these teachers

and with 40 of their students. It focuses on presenting interview findings which

point to the need to take account in any discussion of listening of the varied and

complex demands of social transactions and of the norms governing these transac-tions in particular classroom settings.

BACKGROUND

There has been a move in the last decade away from a narrow focus on the study of

the psychological processes of individual listeners toward an examination of listen-

ing in cultural contexts. This move, for example, can be seen in Michael Purdys

(2000) analysis of listening in relation to cultural structures of consciousness. Thestudy that is reported in this article shares this concern to locate listening within pat-

terns of cultural activity and values, but in contrast to Purdys macro-level consider-

ation of listening and culture it takes a micro-level view of the listening practices

that were observed in ten English classrooms. This study has generated a large body

of findings concerning different facets of listening, and the current article concen-

trates on examining students and teachers representations of the norms governing

listening and response in these classrooms. A related article has presented how

teachers acted to scaffold students listening (Anderson & Sangster, 2006).

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Pauline Sangster, Deputy Director

of Post Graduate Studies, Charteris Building, School of Education, University of Edinburgh,

Holyrood Road, Edinburgh EH8 8AQ Scotland. E-mail: [email protected]

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122 SANGSTER AND ANDERSON

In contrast to a conception of communication as involving a unilateral, univocal

transmission of a fixed message between a sender and a receiver, this research has

been guided by a dialogical perspective on listening and communication whichforegrounds the inter-animation of speaking and listening voices (Bakhtin, 1981;

Clark & Holquist, 1984; Wertsch, 1998). Consonant with this move away from an

individualistic view of communication to one which stresses the intertwined

relationship between a listener and a speaker (or between a listener and the voice(s)

of an oral text), this study has been guided by a sociocultural representation of

listening. This has involved examining how listening is differentiated in action in

relation to discursive practices, cultural purposes, and social contexts. On the

theme of how listening is mediated by particular discursive practices, we have

delineated how students listening was differentiated in relation to the purposes anddemands of specific types of texts (Sangster, 2004). Teachers in the classrooms

studied introduced students to interpretative practices that allowed them to tailor

their listening to the demands of different genres of texts (e.g., imaginative fiction,

nonfiction, print and nonprint media texts such as film). On the basis of these find-

ings and focusing on how specific discursive practices shape our perception and

interpretation of the world (Wertsch, 1991, 1998), it has been argued (Sangster,

2004) that close attention needs to be given to the interpretative resources that

learners can draw on in their oral encounters with particular texts. This argument

clearly contrasts with accounts of listening which portray it largely in terms ofgeneric skills that are applied across content and context.

These findings on how specific interpretative practices and semiotic tools

impact on listening and learning bring into focus one principal way in which

listening needs to be viewed within a cultural and social context. Recognition of

the textual practices that mediate listening needs to be balanced by an awareness

that we listen to: read a person as well as a text, understand a social transaction

and its demands, and engage in action. Accordingly, this research has been con-

cerned to explore the ways in which listening is embedded in the social life of ten

classrooms and related to their interactional demands, patterns of interpersonalrelationships, and norms of communication.

There has been an alertness in some recent writings on literacy and on

classroom communication to the importance of establishing particular values and

processes of interpersonal interaction if a high quality of discussion, reasoning,

and understanding is to be achieved. For example, Neil Mercer (2000) has

observed that:

. . . all interactions, however much focused on a joint intellectual task, must involve

participants in an intersubjectivity, a way of orienting to each others minds. Wecannot, and should not, try to ignore the interpersonal function of language, but we

can try to help participants ensure that interpersonal orientations are compatible

with what they are trying jointly to achieve. (p. 148)

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INVESTIGATING NORMS OF LISTENING IN CLASSROOMS 123

In a similar vein, Kristiina Kumpulainen and David Wray (2002) note that:

In addition to careful instructional design, it seems as important to pay attention tothe established learning culture of the students. For effective learning, it is essential

that the students goals, values and appreciated activity patterns coincide with those

embedded in the learning situation. (p. 129)

While the importance of establishing patterns of social interaction in classrooms

that will foster learning may now be well recognized, the interpersonal aspects

of classroom language have tended to attract less research attention than the

ideational functions of language. Therefore, it seemed appropriate to give con-

siderable attention to the values concerning interaction and patterns of participa-tion that could be discerned in the classrooms that featured in our study. In

particular, it was viewed as valuable to investigate teachers and students own

representations of the norms they saw as governing listening and response

within these classrooms. Before the principal findings concerning respondents

representations of the norms concerning listening in classrooms are presented, it

is necessary first to give a summary picture of the context and methods of this

study.

INVESTIGATION OF LISTENING IN CLASSROOMS

Research Design

The research study that forms the basis of this article focused on exploring the

listening practices within a number of first- and second-year secondary school

(junior high) English classrooms. Efforts were made to avoid preformed concep-

tions of what listening in these settings might entail. The intention was to

construct a bottom-up picture of the listening that occurred; this involvedinvestigating both teachers and students perspectives. The central research

question of delineating what listening practices occurred in these settings was

pursued by:

observations of the ongoing work of ten classes of 11- or 12-year-old

students

more focused observations in these ten settings of lessons that were explic-

itly designed to enhance the listening capacities of students (informed by

analysis of teachers planning documents) focused interviews with the ten teachers whose classes were observed

focused interviews with 40 students, four drawn from each of the ten

classes

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Given that this article centers on teachers and students representations of the

norms concerning listening in class, the following account of the study focuses

on the sampling of the teachers and students, and the interviews and analysis ofinterview transcripts.

Sampling

The observations and interviews took place in different types of schools, (rural/

suburban/urban; public/independent), and there were distinct variations between

these schools in the socio-economic background of their students. The schools

were located in the city of Edinburgh in Scotland or within its surrounding area.

A central component of the research design was the strategy of samplingteachers who had a reputation for being skilled practitioners. All of these teachers

had achieved a profile of very high grades in their Initial Teacher Education

Program and had then gone on to be highly regarded within the departments in

schools where they worked. Observing such a group gave us the opportunity to

delineate the nature of this skilled practice in relation to listening. It also

allowed us to gain a sense of what students could achieve in listening within

classrooms. In keeping with their reputations as accomplished practitioners, these

teachers were able to comment in a reflective manner on listening and gave valu-

able insights. (The large majority of students in the classes of these able practitio-ners had also acquired an appropriate vocabulary for discussing texts and

language. Students ability to deploy this metalanguage to discuss listening facil-

itated the process of research interviewing.)

While clear advantages flowed from this sampling strategy, its limitations also

need to be acknowledged, and considerable caution needs to be exercised in gen-

eralizing from the practice of a group of expert teachers, drawn from a single

region with its own cultural traditions, to a wider population. The particular

activities, purposes, and values actuating listening that featured in these class-

rooms may not be evident in different settings. However, observing the listen-ing that occurred in these settings and examining teachers and students

depictions of listening has brought into clear focus central features of classroom

listening practices and norms that are likely to have some generality. It also has

raised issues concerning the appropriate conceptualization of listening in class-

rooms that can be the focus for wider scholarly debate.

As a point that should be noted in a study of listening, English was the first lan-

guage of the students who were interviewed. The sampling strategy for students

involved asking the teacher in each of the ten classes to identify for interview two

students whom they viewed as good listeners and two students whom theyregarded as less successful listeners. A discussion of the advantages and limita-

tions of this sampling strategy can be found in Sangster (2004, pp. 9699). (It also

should be noted that the interviews with teachers described in the following section

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included exploration of the criteria that they used to make their selection.) Students

selected in this way were not invited to participate in an interview until the observa-

tions had been completed. It was important during the observation of teaching phasethat these students did not feel they were being particularly scrutinized and for the

observer to avoid disrupting the students customary way of interacting with others.

Interviews

Topics Explored in Teacher Interviews

Central matters explored during interviews with the ten teachers included:

the lessons observed: learning objectives; differentiation; methodology;

assessment; evaluation

perceptions of the place of listening within their everyday teaching

reactions to curricular guidelines in relation to listening

planning of listening activities and any difficulties encountered at the

planning stage

perceptions of how different genres of texts, different listening purposes

and contexts impact on students listening

perceptions of the demands of listening, and of listening and watching

listening in school contexts beyond the English classroom

accounts of the processes involved in listening

criteria for identifying good and less successful listeners

views on how students could improve their listening

teachers reflections on their own professional development needs in

relation to listening

Topics Explored in Student Interviews

Mindful of the possible problems associated with interviewing students inearly adolescence (Siegal, 1997), for example, social pressures and potential

clashes between the conversational worlds of children and adults, every effort

was made to minimize such difficulties and address problems that did emerge.

Questions were asked in an explicit manner, with the interviewer acting to make

the questions as clear and unambiguous as possible. Where responses revealed

lack of understanding of the meaning of the question, the interviewer attributed

the problem to her own failure to word the question appropriately. At times,

students misinterpreted why questions as a signal to change their answers and

offered responses aimed to meet what they perceived to be the interviewersneeds. In such instances, the interviewer returned to students initial responses,

expressed genuine interest in them, and encouraged students to offer further

elaboration.

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Central matters discussed during interviews with the 40 students included:

gathering student accounts of the lessons observed; this included exploringtheir awareness of what they were to learn

perceptions of the place of listening within their everyday work in English

classrooms

perceptions of how different genres of texts, different listening purposes,

and contexts affect their listening

perceptions of the demands of listening, and of listening and watching

their sense of factors that facilitate/prevent effective listening

awareness of the listening process

perceptions of themselves as listeners perceptions of good and less successful listening behaviors

views on how they could improve their listening

views on the value of listening within English lessons, in other curricular

areas, and beyond school

Analysis

An inductive approach was adopted as the teacher and student transcripts were

analyzed and patterns, themes, consistencies, and exceptions were identified.Codes were established for each of the main themes and for subthemes that

emerged from the interviews. To ensure that details within responses were not

lost, the initial approach was to identify the main, overarching themes and then to

branch out from there. As the work of analysis progressed and coding was

refined, initial codings were expanded to accommodate emerging subthemes.

There was also a concern to ensure coherence and overall clarity and to remain

alert to the connections between the different themes that emerged. To provide an

analysis that was true to the participants representations of listening in classrooms

required us to delineate clearly these representations within our coding, taking intoaccount nuances of meaning and being mindful of the interconnections between

different themes in the respondents accounts. Analysis needed to be aware of the

complexities evident in teacher and student transcripts and to avoid forms of cate-

gorization that would degrade these complexities and obscure them from view.

NORMS OF LISTENING: THE TEACHERS PERSPECTIVES

The observations of this group of teachers showed that encouraging thoughtful andresponsive social exchanges among their students was central to their practice.

They placed great emphasis in their interview accounts on the importance of the

quality of transactions and social relationships within their classrooms. The teachers

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talk about classroom transactions demonstrated that they viewed listening very

much in normative terms, rather than treating it straightforwardly as an instrumen-

tal means of developing interaction and understanding. The modality of the verbsused by teachers when discussing listening in social contexts was very revealing,

with ought and other markers of obligation appearing much more frequently than

they did in other parts of the interviews. As the following paragraphs illustrate, the

normative expectations that they foregrounded were not presented as applying only

to the students but were seen as mutual obligations of teachers and students. In

addition to these mutual obligations, the teachers saw themselves as having certain

distinct responsibilities in relation to the fostering of listening in classrooms.

Looking first at what these teachers saw as the general obligations of a

listener, whether in a classroom or in another context, two matters were high-lighted within their accounts: displaying socially responsive listening and making

an effort to be attentive to show commitment to a task and to the group itself. The

responsibility of a group member to make an effort to listen was raised by all

teachers during their interviews. While this was regarded as a key matter, it was

also acknowledged that it could be problematic for adults as well as students to

initiate and sustain such an effort. The following extracts illustrate how teachers

talked about this responsibility to make an effort to listen:

. . . think of all the times we sit through sessions that dont really interest us but weknow we should be listening so we move into another gear and put in that extra

effort to listen. Yes, a listener can do thatcan think, Im going to make a bit of

an effort here, even though theyre not too interested. Teacher 1

I hate it when I realize Ive spoken in a group and Im waiting for a response and

realize the person who should be responding hasnt listened. Its really bad manners

and gives out all the wrong kinds of messages to the person speaking. Maybe this

isnt the intention, maybe the person isnt feeling well or is upset about something

and finding it hard to concentrate, but were not mind-reader[s] and its poor group

behavior, I think. People should try to make an effort, especially if theyre in the

business of trying to teach kids to be good in group discussions. Teacher 3

Students responses to this demand to invest effort in listening will be discussed

later in the article. Turning to the expectation that listening be socially responsive

and closely attentive, the teachers had a strong sense of their own responsibility

to present students with a clear model of intellectually and socially responsive

listening and participation. Teacher 1, for example, described her attempts to

demonstrate socially responsive listening in the following terms:

Id try in the group to be supportive and help it along. Id try to do what I think kids

should be learning to doto support, encourage, listen to what others have to say,

try totry to make it work. So Id try to listen in a way that helped me to do that.

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Observations in this teachers classroom revealed her detailed modeling of

different ways in which students could interact with each other to develop

understanding in a supportive manner. Indeed this practice of careful scaffold-ing of responsive listening and interaction was common to all of the teachers

observed (see Anderson & Sangster, 2006, for a detailed account of teachers

scaffolding practices). In these classes there had been open discussion of the

norms that should underpin class and small-group interactions and attempts to

build consensus on these matters, rather than rules being directly imposed by

teachers. Some of the teachers comments pointed to the fact that more was at

stake here than building a consensus to follow particular rules of social interac-

tion. As the following quotation indicates, demonstrating appropriate attentive-

ness and responsiveness could also be seen as requiring social identification witha group and its purposes: . . . of course some kids cant think like that and they

find it impossible to think I need to be involved in this group discussion because

Im part of the group, so perhaps thats a very adult response.

It was recognized that responsive listening was not simply a skill to be

performed but called for specific ways of relating to others:

Its a way of behaving and a way of listening. Teacher 7

I suppose it is quite difficult because youre trying to sort of get them to listen to

each other but theyre so self-absorbed that they dont want to listen to anybody

else, so youre having to get past their personalities and who they want to be which

is actually quite difficult because, you know, I wouldnt like somebody to be telling

me . . . I want you to behave like this now instead of like the way you want to be,

so youre kind of batting [i.e., pushing, reacting] against who they want to be at that

time. Teacher 5

The longer quotation above brings out very clearly that, in order to display

engaged, responsive listening, students were being required to develop a particu-lar way of being with others. In addition, it recognizes that this demand that

students adopt and embody a particular quality of being with others could meet

with resistance, and that attempts to achieve this type of interactional order

within classroom groups could involve some struggle and require the use of

teacher authority.

This teacher and other teacher respondents were exercised by the question of

how best both to deploy and downplay their authority to create a more open and

responsive interactional order in the classroom. On the theme of teacher

authority in relation to the regulation of students ways of listening, Teacher 7talked of how she saw her role as that of encouraging students gradually to

detach from her and move toward assuming more responsibility for their own

listening:

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You listen to your mum, you listen to your dad, you listen to the teachers so theyre

well trained, if you know what I mean. Thats their role within the class. Thats

again very familiar, but its also important not to abuse thatwhen I say abuse it, Imean because they have to eventually detach from this figure at the front command-

ing and leading and whatever and develop these skills themselves and thats where

the groups are more [important]there has to be a context when listening to a

teacher is the focus, but there also has to be a context for them listening to

themselves.

A strong concern to foster students self-regulation of their listening was

expressed across the interviews with this set of teachers and was enacted in the

lessons observed. While the teachers viewed the students as having the responsi-

bility to display and regulate responsive listening to others and to adopt an

appropriately attentive mindset, they also recognized that students had rights to

interesting and motivating tasks; clear, unambiguous messages; and a significant

input of effort on the part of teachers. To illustrate how these teacher responsibil-

ities to engage students attention were talked about by the interviewees, Teacher

3 draws parallels between her own response when listening tasks are uninterest-

ing and that of her students:

I try to make what Im doing interesting for them because its much more likely that

theyll listen and get something out of it if the works interesting. Kids are just like

us really. If we go to [an] in-service and its awful and its clear that the same old

OHTs [overhead transparencies] have been pulled out for the umpteenth time, we

arent really likely to engage with it, are we? And I usually feel resentful that Ive to

sit and listen to someone who hasnt made an effort to prepare well to be interest-

ing. So I dont engage. Kids do the same. You need to get their attention and make

them want to listen to you. Its hard. Not just to get it but to keep it.

This extract points up the instrumental need to make listening interesting if

students are to engage enthusiastically with a task, but it can be seen to cutdeeper than that. It draws attention to the undesirable consequences and

negative emotions that may flow from a speakers failure to display adequate

commitment to a task and an audience. Other teachers expressed their strong

sense that they themselves needed to display authentic engagement with a class

and its activities.

In addition to ensuring that listening tasks were interesting and that they them-

selves were very present in classroom encounters, teachers highlighted the

responsibility of giving students clear instructions and establishing common

understanding of tasks. Teachers statements concerning the importance of clearinstructions and framing of students attention were matched by their actual

practice, and we have delineated the careful ideational scaffolding of students

encounters with oral texts (Anderson & Sangster, 2006). The following account

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from Teacher 8, however, recognizes that putting the obligation of clear framing

of students listening into practice could be problematic:

I think thats one of the first things to go in a lessonit is taking time to give

very clear instructions, which is obviously very important, but if youre rushing

at the end of the lesson, for whatever reason, obviously you shouldnt but, you

know, were human and other things are happening. I think if they are notthey

can get them if theyre absolutely clear, but sometimes we just think things are

clear.

Some teachers recognized that on certain occasions their messages might not be

communicating what they had intended and acknowledged their own responsibil-ity in the breakdown of certain interactions. In a similar vein, teachers recognized

that they themselves might in some instances be directly responsible for students

lack of engagement in listening:

And, I mean, if the teacher really put his or her hand on heart and said, Im sorry, I

havent interested you in the last ten minutes. Thats why youre not listening. But

thats often what it is. Teacher 10

Teachers saw a willingness to acknowledge their own shortcomings in the areas

of providing motivating listening tasks, communicating clearly, and scaffolding

students understanding of texts as essential to improving the quality of transac-

tions within classrooms.

Several teachers went beyond this recognition of responsibility for careful

self-monitoring and responsive adjustment of their actions to take account of

student reactions. They noted that it might be of benefit to students listening

were they to have a voice in evaluating the quality of the listening curriculum

and in determining, to some extent, what couldand shouldbe a feature of

future listening activities:

Just to allow the student the chance to come back and say, Well, had it been more

interesting I would have listened better, or whatever, but to be more conscious that

we share this classroom environment, that we, that the teacher has a responsibility

to try and, as it were, up the text, improve the text. And that this can be discussed.

It takes a mighty lot of courage to do it that way. Teacher 8

This teacher thus acknowledges both the students rights to express their opinions

concerning classroom activities and the courage required to encourage the

expression of these opinions and to enter into dialogue with students about thesematters. Such an approach, though fraught with possible difficulties, could be of

great value if it resulted in an interactional order in the classroom which was

genuinely more open.

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NORMS OF LISTENING: STUDENTS PERSPECTIVES

Listening as a General Social Obligation

Turning to examine students representations of the norms of listening in class-

rooms, these need to be viewed against their view of listening as a general social

obligation across contexts. For example, Student 4 talked of how:

Its important to listen to whats being said . . . in school, at work, listen to your

friends and that . . . its important that they know youll listen to them and that

theyll listen to you when you need to talk.

A particular obligation was attached to responding to friends troubles with accu-

rate, empathic attention. When singling out instances where they saw themselves

as listening well, almost all students referred to the type of therapeutic listening

which characterizes interactions with close friends. Being able to respond

empathically and supportively featured in definitions of good listening, as the

following extract illustrates:

A good listener would also be able to hear when people are upset or they would be

able to help their friends if they felt down or unhappy, or happy. They would be

able to join in with the happiness. Student 22

For Student 22, and some other students, listening was also viewed in terms of

an agenda of self-improvement:

You need to listen to people to give you advice and thats how you develop new skills.

Because you need to listen to people because they need to tell you, Thats wrong, so

you improve it. You make it right and then you remember that the next time, so you

dont make the mistake again, so you need to learn to listen to people in that way.

Responsibility to be Attentive in Classroom Tasks

Consonant with this understanding of listening as a general social obligation,

students displayed a clear sense of their own responsibility to adopt an attentive

mindset within classrooms. Some students talked about the need to be attentive in a

manner which suggested that they had internalized this obligation and that it was

driving their actions in class. To illustrate how these students described their efforts

to implement an intention to listen in a concentrated manner in class, Student 5 said:

In my head, I think that Im really going to try to pay attention andsometimes I

get a bit distracted and I miss bits and find it hard to work out what it means

because Ive missed a bit. I concentrate harderandand

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Interviewer: And?

I just work at it harderand focus moreand shut out everything else from my

mind if I canandeven if Im maybe not that interested I try to make myselfkeep paying attention.

Similarly, Student 3 described his attempts to be attentive during listening tasks,

allied to an intention to achieve personal understanding of an oral text:

I try to pay attention. Concentrate. Not let myself get distractedtry to understand

what Im listening toI try towhen I think, What on earth is all this about? I

try to make sense of it in my own mind.

Attentiveness to Teachers and its Limitations

While students accepted that being attentive was a general obligation within

classrooms, they also recognized that it could be problematic for themselves and

their peers to achieve attentive listening. Recognition of the need to adopt an

attentive mindset in class did not in itself entail an unquestioning acceptance of

teacher authority or a teachers agenda in a particular lesson. Student respondents

in general accepted their teachers authority within transactions. However, some

students discussed (and in our classroom observations demonstrated) theirwillingness to resist a teachers stance or purposes on occasions. We have earlier

noted that Student 22 viewed listening in terms of an agenda of self-improvement,

but she also talked of how she might sometimes resist the teachers improving

role:

I think it can be quite different because you think the teachers are trying to improve

what you do, but sometimes you think that youre more right so you dont tend to

listen [to the teacher] as well as you do to other people.

As Student 22s words indicate, limiting conditions could be placed on the

obligation to be attentive to teachers. The accounts of some other student respon-

dents also revealed a degree of situational variability in their perceptions of

whether teachers talk merited their attentiveness.

Expectations of Teachers

The students also saw teachers as having responsibilities to facilitate their listen-

ing in individual lessons and to assist them to make general progress in theirlistening. They expected teachers to present interesting and relevant listening

tasks and to aid listening by interacting actively with individuals and small

groups. In addition, many students noted the need for teachers to ensure that their

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communications were carefully tailored to their audiences. This personal obliga-

tion of teachers to produce clear, well-targeted messages comes through strongly,

for example, in the following quotation from Student 13:

You really need to make sure that people understand what youre saying. People

dont want to seem stupid and say, Please Mr. Bloggs, I dont understand what

youre saying, because they think that everyone will laugh at them and say, Ha,

ha, you dont know what youre doing, youre stupid, but theyre not stupid, its

just that they dont understand.

This student thus draws attention to how both student understanding and freedom

from face concerns in the classroom are dependent on the quality and clarity of ateachers communications (face here is being used in Goffmans (1972, p. 5)

original sense of the positive social value a person effectively claims for him-

self). Other students expressed the expectations that in cases where students had

not understood teachers messages, teachers should be prepared to increase their

efforts to achieve a common ground of understanding:

Sometimes people genuinely dont understand and teachers just say, No, just forget

about it. But the thing is if a child does not understand and they dont do it all that

often, then they should take more time and make sure that theyre clear. Student 12

Some students not only had this expectation that teachers should act in a commit-

ted fashion to repair any problems in achieving communication and understanding

but also saw them as needing to be proactive to avoid such situations from occur-

ring in the first place. These students saw teachers as having the responsibility to

anticipate the possible difficulties that learners might experience (e.g., conceptual,

semantic) and to scaffold students learning to avoid such difficulties.

Listening and Responsible Interaction with Peers

Student respondents did not see the responsibility for achieving effective listen-

ing and communication as lying solely with their teachers. They also perceived

themselves as having distinct responsibilities to collaborate effectively in group

work and to listen in a responsive fashion to their peers. Most students experi-

enced little difficulty in describing what they believed to be appropriate listening

performance within a group transaction. Many included a range of nonverbal

actions and appropriate verbal responses in their accounts, as is illustrated by the

following extract from the interview with Student 35:

They look at me when Im speaking, they look as if theyre listening, you know, an

interested expression on the facepay attention to meask questionsnot

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distractednot trying to butt in, not interrupting when Im speakingdont make a

fool of me when Im wrong or say something thats not quite right, and I do that

sometimes because Ive not really quite understood something, not bored. Or whensomeone says, Well Claire said such and such a minute ago, so theyve remem-

bered and they can bring it back into the discussion a bit later on. The other Claire

does that quite a lot, cause she knows me and she knows when Im not too sure or

when, when I can do with some help. Miss X wants us all to speak and sometimes

when its my turn Im not sure what to say so Claire helps me.

The preceding extract reveals this students secure understanding of what com-

prises some of the accepted norms of effective listening and talk: sustained eye

contact, facial expressions which demonstrate interest in what the speaker is say-

ing, asking relevant questions, not interrupting, not engaging in face-threatening

actions, bringing the listeners previous contributions into current discussions,

and being able to read the situation and know when, and how, to offer support.

We have noted earlier how in these classrooms there had been a concerted

effort to discuss and build consensus on the norms that should underpin class and

small-group interactions. Set against this background, the students whom we

interviewed were able to give a clear account of the obligations to listen to:

guide appropriate turn taking

show engagement in discussion

be responsive to others

take others ideas seriously

curb ones own expressiveness to contribute to the collective effort

achieve clearer personal understanding

Some students indicated that following certain of these obligations, such as

curbing ones own utterances for the collective good, could on occasion be diffi-

cult to achieve: I know I can be a bit bossy in groups so I try not to be and try to

give everyone a chance to have their say. However, there was a general accep-

tance and endorsement of this set of norms for interaction.

Students noted in their interviews that their teachers had given a clear account

of appropriate standards for group listening and response, modeled in detail how

these norms could be implemented within everyday discussion and had provided

a rationale for following this set of values. Here, for example, is Student 7

describing how his teacher acted to foster the values of respectful attentiveness

and intellectual responsiveness:

She wanted us to understand why we were listening. She also wanted to teach us

that by listening we can learn a lot of things and by responding to what people ask

you and helping people and talking to them and listening to them and giving them

respect of what theyre saying and not saying, Well, thats wrong, because thats

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not what my idea is. You should think, Well, thats a good idea as well, it may not

be my idea but its someone elses opinion on what it is. Thats their idea or their

opinion, its not mine.

Observations of small-group work in these classes revealed that for the most part

these values concerning group interaction were enacted, rather than just espoused,

with students listening and responding to each other in a socially supportive man-

ner and employing the types of interactional moves that their teachers had modeled.

A strong theme in the majority of student accounts was that following this set

of norms involved mutual obligations. One was obliged to display attentiveness

and responsiveness to others but expected a reciprocal degree of attentiveness

and responsiveness from others. In the words of Student 12: I try to take itseriously so that theyll treat what I say seriously as well. It is revealing that per-

ceived breaches of this set of mutual obligations were presented as frustrating

and unacceptable:

Youve got to have quite a good memory with listening in the groups so you can

remember what every person has said and youve got to try to get it right . . .

theres this guy in our group and he says: And X said . . . and I didnt say that at

all, he got it wrong, so thats important with listening cause its a bit annoying.

Student 26

The interviews moreover revealed students sense that they needed to display

their attentiveness to others in an explicit fashion. For example, one talked of

how I try to make sure theres an interested look on my face. While there was a

need to present oneself to others as an engaged, attentive listener, peers expres-

sions, gestures and bodily orientation were also read to discern whether they

were being appropriately attentive, or not:

. . . if they are smiling and looking kind of questioningly at you, you would know

that theyre waiting to hear what was going to be said next. Student 22

In effect most student respondents showed an understanding that one had as a lis-

tener to embody and actively perform an appropriate social orientation to others.

Norms of Interaction and Engagement with Ideas

This commitment to norms of responsive, attentive listening and to participation

with others not only helped to establish a cooperative classroom climate but alsoto facilitate learning from others and the engaged examination of a topic. An

openness to work with and learn from others is evident, for example, in the

following, brief representative comments:

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So to get the true meaning of something you really have to bring other people into a

conversation. Student 12

I like working out what it all meansand I like hearing what other people in my

group think. And theres no right answer, so long as you back up your answer OK.

Student 10

To set these student comments in a context, the observational part of the study

revealed that students were engaging in activities where they were required to

arrive at some kind of collaborative understanding, solution, or resolution.

Collaborative effort was a routine feature in the life of these classrooms.

However, teachers in these classrooms were not content simply to foster thecollaborative accumulation of understanding through engaged group discussion.

They also set out the expectation that students would analyze and evaluate the ideas

offered by their peers. The students interviewed in the main expressed an apprecia-

tion of the importance of questioning the ideas that were being considered in a

group, with Student 13, for example, stating vigorously that a good listener

doesnt just lap up what youre saying and take it as it comes. Attentiveness to

others ideas featured prominently in some of the students accounts of listening:

Sometimes Im not too sure about something and it helps me to listen to otherpeoples ideas and opinions so I can sort it out for myself. I mean, I dont just listen

to their ideas and think to myself, Right, thats the answer, but I think to myself,

Right, she thinks this and she thinks that so are they right or not or partly right and

partly wrong and what do I think, whats my opinion? Student 21

Many students, when discussing the nature and quality of group interactions,

highlighted the benefits of such transactions in helping them to sort out what they

actually thought about a particular issue or topic under discussion. This willing-

ness to approach the task in a genuinely open manner characterized most of theinteractions observed in these classrooms. Students asked questions of one

another, sought clarification, hypothesized, paraphrased, and synthesized. They

challenged and refuted in ways which encouraged exploration of ideas, topics, or

problems as they were engaged on listening tasks.

Students identified how engagement in discussion with their peers allowed

them as listeners to:

formulate, initial, tentative ideas

clarify or correct his or her initial understanding gain access to opinions and conclusions that were perhaps different to ones

already held or reached by the listener

evaluate the ideas of others

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be engaged in collaborative and collective group effort

have immediate opportunities, having heard opinions, to respond in differ-

ent ways by accepting or rejecting ideas introduce new ideas to the discussion

Without prompting, they also identified these forms of engagement as particu-

larly beneficial to their listening. The theme of sharing ideas and opinions in this

mutually supportive way is expressed clearly by Student 28:

You can listen or you can try to get involved, like, and say something to the group

and you get to hear other peoples ideas and so its betterand we make decisions

when weve discussed something and put all our ideas together and see what wecame up with at the end.

DISCUSSION

It has been noted earlier that a key strategy in the research design of this study

was the sampling of teachers who had a reputation as skilled practitioners.

Accordingly, it is recognized that considerable caution needs to be exercised in

generalizing from the findings of this study. The particular understandings of thenorms governing listening and interaction revealed in the study, and students

orientations toward these norms, may not necessarily be shared by students

whose learning has not been scaffolded in such a skilled fashion. The specific

norms governing listening and interaction within classrooms will always be

shaped by the wider cultural values and expectations of an individual society.

Acknowledging these limitations, this article has focused on matters that form

part of the fabric of everyday classroom life but which may receive insufficient

attention. The development of listening is commonly talked of in terms of

instruction in, and practice of, skills. Whatever the advantages of framing listen-ing in terms of a discourse of skills, this discourse does tend to lead to an individ-

ualistic conception of listening and can be associated with a narrowly technical

view of its development. Foregrounding the normative aspects of listening brings

into sharp relief the integral connection of listening with particular forms of

social relationships and transactions, and with the presentation of self to others.

We have considered how the teachers in this study regarded responsive,

engaged listening not simply as a skill to be performed but as requiring particular

ways of relating to others. Correspondingly, student respondents in the main

demonstrated an appreciation that appropriate listening had to be embodied andactively displayed to ones peers. The talk of these teachers and students about

the norms of listening is consonant with the perspective on learning provided by

Shotter (1993a, b, c). Shotter moves away from a view that presents learning

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simply as a process of acquisition and centers attention on the gaining and perfor-

mance of a set of cultural practices and on ways of being with others:

Thus our task in learning how to act personally, as an autonomous member of our

culture, is in learning how to do all the things in our culture, like measuring,

inferring, remembering, perceiving, listening, speaking, etc., we must learn to do

them as the others around us do themwe must learn how to be as they are.

Indeed, if we do not, then they will sanction us and not accord us the right to act

freely. (1993a, p. 70)

We would argue that, in reflecting on classroom practice, there is a need to be

alert to the requirements placed on students to develop particular ways of being

with and responding to others, and to appreciate the difficulties some students

may experience in displaying these forms of being.

It is interesting to note that teachers and students talk about listening, includ-

ing extracts that have been cited in this article, often featured both moral and

instrumental concerns. Matters such as listening attentively to others were pre-

sented as obligations that had to be fulfilled and as offering gains in term of

engaged participation and developing understanding. Recognizing the interweav-

ing of instrumental and moral reasoning in the accounts that individuals provide

of particular features of social life is not a new insight. In The Presentation of

Self in Everyday Life, Goffman (1959) observed that:

When we examine the order that is maintained in a given region, however, we find

that these two kinds of demands, moral and instrumental, seem to affect in much the

same way the individual who must answer to them, and that both moral and instru-

mental grounds or rationalizations are put forth as justification for most standards

that must be maintained. (p. 110)

While this may not be a new insight, it does highlight an important methodologi-

cal consideration in the analysis of interviews on the topic of listening, given that

it implies the need to be attentive to both the moral and instrumental concerns

that may appear in teachers and students accounts rather than looking

exclusively at one set of concerns or the other.

It is possible to take different evaluative stances toward the finding that students

largely endorsed the norms of listening that we have delineated in this article.

Radical critics of child-centered elementary education, such as Walkerdine (1988),

have argued that its practices render the power relations between teacher and chil-dren invisible (p. 210) and that the illusion of choice, of security and safety, are key

features of what is taken to be correct classroom life (p. 211). Correspondingly, one

could claim that students in the classrooms we studied were required to discipline

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their own listening and ways of responding to others and that their freedom of action

was illusory. However, such a stance which focuses solely on constraint and the

imposition of power is not well placed to capture the complexity within the relationsof power and consent that existed between these teachers and students.

Focusing predominantly on constraint does not take account of how following

these norms of attention and response enabled students to participate fully in

these classroom settings and to act in ways that fostered productive talk and the

development of understanding. In these settings, individuals rights to have their

ideas taken seriously were emphasized and enacted, and teachers encouraged

students to develop their own interpretations of oral and written texts. Thus it

would be inappropriate to focus on the constraining effect of the demand for self-

discipline of listening and response. Shotter has drawn attention to the way inwhich gaining agency within a particular culture is dependent on learning the

appropriate performance of the practices of that culture (Shotter, 1993a, b, c). In

his account of learning, the enabling and constraining functions of education can

be seen to be necessarily interlinked rather than opposed.

The student participants willingness to endorse the listening norms and

practices that featured in these classrooms needs to be viewed against their

understanding of attentive, responsive listening to others as a general obligation.

Goodnow (1990) has considered how the value that a culture attaches to a partic-

ular practice may affect childrens investment of self and action in that practice.In the case of listening, there would seem to be a consonance between these

students acceptance of the general social responsibilities that one needs to fulfill

as a listener and classroom norms and practices.

Displaying openness and attentiveness to others ideas allowed for the engaged

exploration of a text or a topic and productive collaboration around a task. Mutual

attentiveness that involved taking others ideas seriously and responding to these

ideas appeared from our observations to set the grounds on which reasoned

disagreements with the views of peers could proceed in a constructive, rather than

disruptive, fashion. Mercer (2000) has noted how the quality of our collectivethinking together is crucially dependent on the ways in which we use language to

orientate to each others intellects (p. 103). Expanding on Mercers observation,

we would claim from the findings of this study that the normative basis on which

one orients to others intellects needs to be kept in mind, and that achieving

rational debate and the construction of a common understanding entails trying to

display particular qualities of listening and response.

REFERENCES

Anderson, C., & Sangster, P. (2006). Listening practices in classrooms: Scaffolding, framing and

participation.Journal of Reading, Writing and Literacy, 1(2), 2745.

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investigaing norms of lstenin in clasrooms

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