Listening and Dialogue

Good dialogue is a skill, not a personality trait — come build it.

Students are asked to think about a time or situation in their lives when they’ve had really good conversation. Connecting, engaging, inspiring conversation. If they can’t think of a time, imagine it. What was it like? What happened to make it so good? How did it make them feel?

In this workshop, students will explore the skills of listening and dialogue, including suspending judgement, dialogue across difference, and making space for difficult conversations. This will provide some foundational skills that underpin transdisciplinary skills of interaction, pluralism, integration and change orientation. They will learn how to bring skills of listening and dialogue to building shared meaning and exploring emergent ideas.

Introductory activities will draw on appreciative experiences of good conversation and will guide them through listening exercises. They will then practice these skills in a circle dialogue on a topic chosen in the workshop. The workshop will close with reflection on the dialogue and an inspirational check-out considering what might be possible with deeper listening.

Reflection:

• How does the dialogue practice you learnt about differ from other communication contexts you experience, especially at uni? How could applying these approaches make a difference?
• Reflecting on the principles, what strengths do you bring to dialogue? What might get in the way of dialogue for you? What skills or dispositions could you build to improve your dialogue, listening & communication? What difference might this make?