Eavesdropping as Listening Development

Abstract

In ordinary life we are constantly imbued by listening, and we seem to interact in different contextual dimensions of culture and society (Adelmann, 2002; Linell, 1998), both verbally and nonverbally. “Life by its very nature is dialogic. To live means to participate in dialogue,” according to the Russian scholar Mikhail M. Bakhtin (1984, p. 293). In everyday life we get used to many kinds of situations where we hear conversations that we are actually not supposed to hear. For example, while we are waiting for the bus or subway we may listen to people next to us who appear to being having an argument. Usually we do not notice all these routine situations. But sometimes we do notice someinteraction and listen with some attention. We have more of an absentminded attention and rarely listen attentively, but what if we did? The activity in listening presented here takes advantage of our daily and personal listening experiences of eavesdropping and use it for the educational purpose of listening development.