Pre-service teachers’ understanding of sacrificial listening as a pedagogical framework

Abstract

ABSTRACT Listening is necessary for effective learning. Unfortunately, outside of comprehension tasks, listening is rarely emphasized as a key component of classroom instruction. This study considers a specific type of listening, sacrificial listening, theorized to help to bridge cultural, political, and religious divides by emphasizing understanding and unfamiliar voices. In this qualitative, arts-based research study, found poetry is used to investigate preservice teachers (PST) understandings of sacrificial listening as a pedagogical tool, including their consideration of its key components and applications to practice in the elementary classroom. While PST do appear to understand the power of sacrificial listening in reducing misunderstandings between unfamiliar voices, findings from this study also confirm what is already known about teacher education: there is an explicit need for teacher educators to intentionally work with PST on how to take an abstract theory and apply it to practice in concrete ways.