Think back to the last time you taught or, if you are new to teaching, the last time you were in a teaching session as a student.
Imagine you are there now, watching the session. Who is speaking and to whom are they speaking? Who else is speaking? When does the teacher speak and why? When do students speak and why? Try to trace the patterns of speaking and listening. Imagine a ball of wool being unravelled, starting from the first person you heard speak and linking them to the person or people they were addressing, and then from that person to the next. Perhaps there are many different balls of wool being unravelled, of different colours, as several different conversations or patterns of speaking and listening play out at once. Perhaps you don’t hear anything at all, but are looking at people communicating using British Sign Language or other types of sign language. Perhaps you are D/deaf or hearing-impaired yourself and are used to reading ‘speaking and listening’ and understanding it to mean patterns of communication whether ‘voiced’ or not.
