El principio dialógico en el aula: prácticas de conversación y escucha

Resumen

Este estudio, enraizado en la investigación institucionalizada, posiciona el principio dialógico como fundamento ético y discursivo para promover la convivencia en la educación. Al destacar la importancia de la escucha, aboga por la creación de comunidades que acojan la diversidad y se esfuercen por lograr sociedades inclusivas. El documento hace hincapié en la importancia pedagógica del principio dialógico, sobre todo para facilitar la negociación de significados y fomentar el pensamiento crítico a través de la conversación. También subraya la necesidad de una investigación sostenida sobre el diálogo en el aula, abogando por un enfoque transdisciplinar que integre la pluralidad dialógica y cultural. Esta perspectiva combina fundamentos epistemológicos y conocimientos procedentes de diversas fuentes, incluidas las no académicas, con el apoyo de metodologías etnográficas. Los resultados sugieren que dar prioridad a la conversación y la escucha en la educación puede contribuir al desarrollo de estrategias pedagógicas innovadoras y mejorar los programas de formación del profesorado. Este enfoque reconoce el papel transformador del diálogo en la configuración de entornos educativos inclusivos y críticos, al tiempo que aborda las implicaciones más amplias para las prácticas pedagógicas en sociedades diversas y dinámicas.

Palabras clave: escucha; conversación; principio dialógico; aula; educación

O princípio dialógico na sala de aula: práticas de conversação e escuta

Resum0

Este estudo, baseado em pesquisas institucionalizadas, posiciona o princípio dialógico como um fundamento ético e discursivo para promover a coexistência na educação. Enfatizando a importância de ouvir, ele defende a criação de comunidades que acolham a diversidade e lutem por sociedades inclusivas. O documento enfatiza a importância pedagógica do princípio dialógico, especialmente para facilitar a negociação de significados e promover o pensamento crítico por meio de conversas. Ele também destaca a necessidade de pesquisas sustentadas sobre o diálogo em sala de aula, defendendo uma abordagem transdisciplinar que integre a pluralidade dialógica e cultural. Essa perspectiva combina fundamentos epistemológicos e conhecimentos de diversas fontes, inclusive não acadêmicas, com o apoio de metodologias etnográficas. Os resultados sugerem que priorizar a conversação e a escuta na educação pode contribuir para o desenvolvimento de estratégias pedagógicas inovadoras e melhorar os programas de formação de professores. Essa abordagem reconhece o papel transformador do diálogo na formação de ambientes educacionais inclusivos e críticos, ao mesmo tempo em que aborda as implicações mais amplas para as práticas pedagógicas em sociedades diversas e dinâmicas.

Palavras-chave: escuta; conversação; princípio dialógico; sala de aula; educação

Introduction

This paper presents a theoretical reflection on listening and conversation within the context of an institutionalized research project at “Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas” [Francisco José de Caldas District University], titled Conversation as a Discursive Genre for Ethical Listening in Diverse School Environments (2021-2023). This project, in turn, was a consequence of the prior titled Didactics of Oral Discursive Genres That Build Critical Thinking in Diverse Educational Settings (2019-2021), which was carried out by the Education and Society Research Group of Universidad de La Salle in Bogota (Colombia) and the Ibero-American Network of Studies on Orality (RIEO, its Spanish acronym). This experience opened up new epistemological and methodological dialogues that sparked a reconsideration of the phenomena that listening and conversation are in the oral genre from more open approaches, thereby allowing more understanding of the relational dynamics based on paths and intersubjective relationships that, in turn, determine real communicative possibilities articulated to learning and educating citizens that are tolerant of diversity.

The research of the RIEO (Educational Research and Innovation Office) aimed to study the role of conversation and listening through the analysis of discursive genres in the classroom. For this purpose, an exercise in deconstructing three discursive genres was carried out within the repertoire of oral genres accessible from a dialogical perspective (interview, oral story, and conversation). This experience allowed for the exploration, inquiry, analysis, and deepening of the theme of ethical listening and conversation in diverse educational settings, leading to reflections on the implication of the dialogical principle in pedagogical-conversational practices and mutual recognition of research communities.

We start by understanding dialogical communication as the human need to maintain the connection and attention of our interlocutors or dialog partners. In this way, we build horizons of meaning and ensure our presence in the lives of other people. In this regard, Buber (2006) considers dialogue as synonymous with relationship or encounter and grounds it in the idea of reciprocity. He points out that the relationship is already there, so there’s no need to seek it; the interlocutor (you) is found in every encounter in life. We will refer to this desire to communicate with others as the dialogical principle and the desire to give meaning to others as the dialogical principle. These principles embody dialogical conversation by being open to interaction and listening in a relationship free from coercion.

This relational perspective of human experience, with an emphasis on dialogical openness, as expressed in the work of this author, has strongly piqued our interest as we aim to share knowledge and exchange pedagogical experiences with groups of teacher-researchers and academic-scientific networks dedicated to the study of language activities. This aspiration is challenging due to the complexity of fostering connections among collectives and promoting an openness to conversation, ethical listening, and, in general, to rhetorical interaction capable of meaningfully sustaining the different positions that arise when jointly studying social phenomena. Undoubtedly, this dialogical capacity rooted in the plurality of dissonant voices is a part of the linguistic and social behavior in the dialogical perspective of language adopted by contemporary philosophers (Bakhtin, 1999, 2015; Voloshinov, 1992; Gadamer, 1998; Levinas, 2001; Buber, 2006). Taking into consideration the critical dialogue with these authors, and the experience with the aforementioned project, the theoretical reflections presented hereupon emerged. These reflections have led us to affirm that the dialogic principle is fundamental in every relational dynamic, which implies a conscious, deep, communicative, sincere, open, and divergent bonding activity.

Within this framework, the significance and interplay of listening and conversational practices are initially examined through the lens of the dialogical principle in social contexts. Subsequently, the focus shifts to exploring these practices within educational settings, emphasizing their role in fostering dialogical communities committed to critical analysis and cultural transformation. Specifically, an education centered on listening and conversation needs the establishment of relationships rooted in alterity—relationships characterized by accountability and respect for spoken and heard discourse. In conclusion, the development of alternative strategies has been proposed to make the school speak. This metaphor highlights the imperative need to transcend traditional educational models founded on hierarchical relationships of power and authority. Instead, it advocates for the creation of innovative principles and practices where listening and conversation serve as integral elements, enabling more participatory and transformative educational experiences.

The practices of conversation and listening in social contexts

According to Buber (2006), the “I” does not exist without the “You” because they openly address one another and establish a defining relationship of human existence. Therefore, they symbolize dialogue and agreement. This relational capacity of human beings, presented by Buber (2006) in philosophical anthropology, is intertwined with the linguistic and pragmatic perspective of Russian thinkers Bakhtin (1999) and Voloshinov (1992). Their foundational analysis of the other’s word (alien word) was based on the theory of enunciation, everyday discourse, the other’s discourse, and discursive genres – a brilliant discovery at the time for understanding the dialogic dimension of language and awareness.

This relational approach does not deny the dialogical capacities of the participants; on the contrary, it is endowed with dispositions to play between inter-texts, inter-discourses, and anti-discourses that promote dialogism (Cárdenas et al., 2012). “Dialoguichnost” (dialogicity) allows for cultural plurality because it symbolizes the open attitude of speakers and interlocutors, as expressed in their speech, gestures, or bodily expressions. Therefore, their deliberate words and thought processes demonstrate the capacity for otherness within communities and their possibilities for transformation. Hence the speaker thinks like the other, not only to reach consensus but also to position themselves in a scenario of contradiction.

Thus, dialogicity focuses on critical practice, where interaction between potential and real discursive individuals is essential (Navarro, 1996; Bres, 2005). For Paul de Man (2005), the purpose of dialogicity is to support and examine the radical externality or heterogeneity of a voice in relation to any other. Therefore, it opens a path to alterity and does not seek a resolution, but rather something in line with the principle of alterity: the other’s privilege. In this sense, dialogicity is represented in alterity, opposition, gap, and difference, as well as the possibility of coming out of oneself to listen to the other’s place of social and epistemic enunciation.

Therefore, we understand that dialogism is the relational capacity for meaning-making that occurs in social interaction between the speaker and the interlocutor. It is based on situated spoken words that are open to transformation, especially within specialized communities seeking self-transformation through research. Within this framework, we recognize the qualities of an ethics of listening and conversation, emphasizing the responsibility for what is said and the respect for different viewpoints. It is susceptible to transformation thanks to agreements and disagreements with oneself, with others, and with each other . That is to say, in an agreement, the other’s word is recognized, meanings can be built while the other’s thinking can be anticipated, and interpreted (Gutiérrez-Ríos, 2014, 2018, 2019). Dialogicity demonstrates that dialogue goes beyond the representation of unity and consensus; it is a conflictive interaction with the ability to recognize different voices, consciences, and ideologies (Bakhtin, 1999; Cárdenas et al., 2012).

Consequently, we understand that the dialogic principle embodies the relational capability to signify and have the attitude of remaining open to critical practice, which supposes a disposition to listen and converse. These practices are inherent to the living dynamic of the word; they occur in the disposition of interlocutors to enter the verbal alternation of voices, faces, and gestures that are common in a communicative relationship (Rojas-Álvarez, 2017, 2019; Álvarez, 2001; Mignolo, 1987). Undoubtedly, the dialogic principle is typical of communities that allow their ideologies to be questioned and are opened to confrontation. This tolerance to questioning is present in the conflicting interval, in alterity, and in all dynamic relationships. At this point, the proposals of Bakhtin (1999; 2015) and Voloshinov (1992) coincide with those of Gadamer (1998) regarding dialogicity as a fundamental principle for human beings whose realization occurs in listening and conversation as processes of understanding and building meaning. For Gadamer (1998), dialogicity is immersed in one’s own experience and is characterized by a constant need to understand the world, improve it, and widen one’s vision through a permanent hermeneutic process.

Gadamer (2000) gives the word the attribute of pure communication, of pain and pleasure, taken away from nature, of opening community resolution in the middle of understanding, of the good and the useful, and of the sense of belonging through dialogue. In this vein, Ricoeur (1986) suggests interpreting culture through the word, especially when ideologies dispute establishing its meaning to uphold the principles of democracies against the continuity of hegemonic structures. Its contribution is essential to the dialogism of enunciation, to the hermeneutics of the interlocutor’s word, and to the understanding of their discourse that challenges perspectives and gives visibility to social practices and places of enunciation in a society’s collective, political, and historical construction.

Thus, the dialogic principle in conversation and listening is characterized by the desire to interact and signify with others. This attitude enables the logic of exchange, movements, and signs. It also symbolizes the real joy of meeting face-to-face with people with sensitive bodies. Furthermore, it triggers the strength and drive of the spoken word - not always verbal and enunciated - which circulates among gestures and silences, among spaces and times where speakers and interlocutors come into contact (Gutiérrez-Ríos, 2014, 2017, 2019; Rojas-Álvarez, 2019, 2017; Uribe & Gutiérrez-Ríos, 2023). The dialogic principle embodies the desire to communicate and listen from the difference, beyond verbal interaction or the sequential representation of transcribing voices in a novel or a play (Morson & Caryl, 1990). That is to say, an I that pays attention to what a You says in a given context gives meaning to the intentionalities of the verbal and nonverbal interaction transcending its limits while it constitutes a behavior and/or an attitude.

There appears to be total synergy between the dialogic principle and listening and conversation practices. However, cultural practices and social diversity are currently being faced with a variety of nuances in their realization. Moreover, taking this diversity to the school scenario increases this issue’s level of complexity as it is confronted with the dominant paradigms regarding academic listening and conversation. As remarked by Zuleta (1998), dialogic relationships are always in construction; they are never given, realized, or concluded. Reaching that dialogic attitude implies not only interacting with others but also facing the other with not only disagreements or non-actions but also constructive, deconstructive, and reconstructive actions.

The analysis of listening and conversational practices within social contexts, grounded in the dialogic principle, presents a profound challenge. This challenge arises from the insufficient conceptual-level exploration of their relational dimensions. While existing research has primarily focused on the situated relational experiences of participants, the theoretical underpinnings of these practices remain largely underexamined

The pedagogic dimension of conversation and listening at school

The dialogical principle of conversation is nurtured by the vital process of listening and promotes the joint construction of community and citizenship. To achieve this, it is necessary to consider, in the school setting, the potentiality of critical intersubjectivity, which is inevitable in the relationships between teachers and students. This implies the challenge of acknowledging the presence of the other within ourselves. This entails a relational and diverse nature that unfolds in multiple interactions characterized by issues, questions, agreements, disagreements, and various exchanges.

This relates to a dialogic interaction that allows the rethinking of learning and teaching as being open to a double alterity whose basis is engraved in listening or developing an understanding of individuals that is open to their ethical-political construction. Nevertheless, listening to students has not been an educational priority throughout history; on the contrary, it is a current matter. As outlined by Foucault (2002), educational systems from the classical era to modern Europe imposed strict prohibitions on unpressured speech within classrooms, requiring children to first be conditioned to remain silent and still. This practice persisted until it underwent significant transformation following the Second World War.

The hegemonic cultural practices, which maintain certain forms of interaction and symbolic production, are reproduced in the communicative practices of school environments. Their continuity and effects have constituted concerns that have been the object of educational research, as shown by preliminary studies that have called for a pedagogical and didactic understanding that favors conversation and listening as dialogic constructions and necessary conditions for educational action (Gutiérrez-Ríos, 2014; Hernández, 2022). Listening has been disregarded, neglected, and omitted. It has not been sufficiently recognized either in theory or at school, nor in social and investigative contexts (Rojas-Álvarez, 2019). In turn, there is caution in that listening needs its own place to establish the elements that come into play within the education of the listening individual (León-Suárez, 2019).

In this sense, it is imperative that investigations relate listening with discursive genres such as conversation in educational communities in Colombia, Latin America, and Europe (RIEO, 2019. It highlights multiple paths that materialize in the relationship between individuals in the context of language and social environments. In particular, the presence of listening and conversation is required in schools in order to contradict the stereotype of the latter as an activity that wastes time as it creates disorder and chaos; and, instead, it should be reclaimed from the dialogic principle inherent to the conversation based on the cooperation between peers and the desire to appropriate the suitable linguistic forms to discursively act according to specific needs and interests (Rojas-Pulido, 2015).

In addition, the converging dialogic point leads us to link listening and conversation to a constructive perspective of knowledge. Freire and Faundez (2013) emphasize the importance of fostering dialogue regarding the pedagogical ideas of both teachers and students. They highlight the underlying assumption that the teacher is often perceived as the sole possessor of truth, responsible for imparting it to students.Nevertheless, such truth exists only in the tension of dialogue since truth is a search and not a product, whilst knowledge is a process. Hence, it is necessary to go through it and achieve it by means of dialogue. This is naturally a reciprocal process of teaching and learning as teachers learn from their teaching experience, and in return the process itself trains them for teaching and learning together with their mentors - not only because they prepare themselves, but because they examine their knowledge as a result of seeking the student’s knowledge (Freire and Faundez, 2013).

In light of the above, it is fundamental to analyze and interpret the convergent characteristics of the dialogic and conversational principles towards listening that make us equal, but also consider the inevitable differences between students and the one who teaches. This symbolizes the recognition of the otherness and the difference that facilitates the joint construction of knowledge by making it more enriching and meaningful (Not, 1992; Mercer, 1997) due to each one having its own traits, uniqueness, voice, and a particular form of expression.

The role of speaking and listening in educational contexts, guided by the dialogic principle, lies in its ability to structure and promote the negotiation of meaning. This endeavor represents a challenge that acknowledges the inherent complexities of educational realities. Consequently, within academic-school environments, it is essential to prioritize education centered on and derived from listening, even before the transmission of knowledge. Such an approach aims to transform classrooms into spaces dedicated to nurturing and welcoming the other (RIEO, 2019).At this point, it is necessary to recognize that every social practice is closely related to an oral discursive genre as an intended social action that is constructed between participants that reveal different ways of seeing the world. The oral discursive genre refers to the type of interaction; we speak through oral discursive genres and adopt different ways of speaking and listening to specific situations, particular structures, social contracts, and intentionalities (Bakhtin, 1999; Núñez & Hernández, 2011; Bazerman, 2012; Gutiérrez-Ríos, 2018; Rojas-Álvarez, 2019).

Conversation and listening are placed in the study of the interrelation between I and You based on dialogue and its connection to dialogism and alterity. Here, the dialogic principle is essential, not only for its social bond but also for the semi-discursive, aesthetic, epistemic, and ethical-political structures that maintain it and determine its possibilities of action.

Possibilities for promoting conversation and listening at school

The metaphor of making the school speak (Duschatzky, 2017) highlights the importance of avoiding the use of a language that crystallizes dominant school discourses - practices that shape the educational and curricular policy, as well as silencing practices. This has hindered the permanent access to other forms of perceiving, feeling, acting, thinking, and opening paths towards reflection around fundamental ideas of conversation and listening from a perspective of dialogism and cultural plurality, given that conversation, in its dialogic dimension, is linked to culture and is affected by ideological, scientific, ethical, political, economic, and religious configurations. It calls for an opening to other ways of listening, conversing, perceiving, feeling, and thinking, which are capable of creating new worlds and not only for the purpose of tackling imminent issues. It proposes a policy of listening as a way of resisting the classroom monologic tradition of questioning individuals at school so that they can reinvent time and propose other ways of asking questions and building coherent communities for the future.

In the educational context, the pedagogical intentionality of conversation can be assumed to be a space of hope and a promise of change for oneself and one’s surroundings. Conversing with another is, above all, to deal with another, to motivate the desire of being with another in order to jointly build meaning in life, as well as to recognize each other as perfectible and unfinished beings in constant transformation. Conversing is to kindle the desire for knowledge in order to confirm certainties and resolve doubts from the exchange of verbal and nonverbal enunciation forms between interlocutors. Thus, conversation is a complex form of interaction that allows both cooperation and listening hermeneutics, which are mutually necessary for building societies. This dialogic attitude encourages the desire to maintain interpersonal bonds - the vitality of the word. This is why encounters never cease, nor do we stop expressing our feelings, but continually search for explanations about the world that surrounds us (Meza et al., 2021).

This interaction between discursive individuals in situational environments - or in the determined and organized micro-worlds of the classroom - is not exempt from the coloniality of knowledge and the human experience. The relationship between the interlocutors within the situational environment is marked by language subjectivity, which is reflected on the enunciative units of institutional, professional, social, personal, and quotidian nature (Pinilla- Gómez, 2010). This involves the presence and emotional engagement of the speaker with respect to the object expressed in his/her enunciations. In Kerbrat-Orecchioni’s words (1980), it is understood that every lexical unit is, to a certain extent, subjective, given that the words of the language are not symbols that substitute or interpret things.

From a dialogic position, Gadamer (1998) points out that the pedagogic conversation should emerge in the situation of a teacher with his/her students, within the intimacy of a small circle –as has been done since Plato - because dialogue is not possible with many people at the same time, nor in the presence of many. As such, so-called debates from a podium or conversations at a large round table end up as half-finished dialogues. Despite there not being an established, exact, or appropriate number of people to take part in a pedagogical conversation or dialogue, some school teachers claim, in their experiences, that conversational interactions flow more between children or peers than between teachers and students, as shown by Mercer (1997). Other studies reveal that a reduced number of students facilitates cooperative work, which creates friendly environments in which all students can express themselves and get to know each other, while also taking into consideration that listening processes are hastened in peer groups (Rojas-Álvarez, 2019).

Nevertheless, in a conventional classroom that might have many students, it is also possible that the teacher’s dialogic disposition opens spaces for listening to what the students express in multiple and varied ways (including body language and moments of silence) in order to promote pedagogical conversations. The emerging themes can show situations that are real and close to what children listen to, the news that affects them, and the everyday aspects that they experience in familiar contexts. Thus, in this environment, multiple voices that participate with their experiences and emotions arise as the schoolteacher can redirect for mutual listening (Rojas-Álvarez, 2019).

When academic conversation is thought of as a discursive genre with a reflective nature, it embodies a constant intersubjective flow that promotes critical thinking with an authentic other. This allows rethinking the origin and/or reason for learning and teaching in educational settings while acknowledging the difference in spaces where human dimensions and the construction of meaning are valued (Rojas Álvarez, León Suárez, & Avellaneda Ramírez, 2023).

Preparation for the circulation of the word requires a suitable didactic time in accordance with the number of participants and the purpose of the academic conversation. Given its formal and planned nature as a dialogic genre, this process involves classroom situations, issues, or topics from different disciplinary areas, thus leading to the construction of knowledge that is critically shared and assumed. Moreover, it responds to a cooperative learning style, as the group exchanges ideas, experiences, feelings, and information that require questions, arguments, and reflections due to the interlocutors, i.e., students and teachers (Cárdenas et al., 2017).

From Mercer’s (1997) perspective, conversation in an educational setting is seen as a practice with specific educational intentions, purposes, and goals, which contributes to acquiring relevant knowledge from students; responding to what they say, sharing classroom experiences, enabling decision-making when disagreements arise, and accepting suggestions, among others. Likewise, as the author points out, conversation between students is valuable for producing knowledge and developing understanding; it helps to solve intellectual problems and advance in awareness. Furthermore, it promotes collaborative analysis and reasoning, comparing possible explanations, and agreeing on decisions. Students can reach mutual understanding through conversation by carrying out logical reasoning exercises as information is gathered. That said, knowledge and understanding are only created when one works with information by selecting, organizing, and discussing their importance.

In studies such as the one by Calderón (2005), the construction of knowledge is identified among a group of students based on dialogic conversation guided by reasoning and argumentation processes, which could not have taken place from a teacher’s unilateral discourse. In this type of conversational dynamic, students outline uncertainties and gaps that help in the process of constructing knowledge, making it more helpful than just asking for explanations or the usual evidence required by the teacher. Peer work encourages all students to be taken into account, contextualizing the discourse so they can find it more meaningful and easier to understand and explain, which contributes to improving listening levels. (Rojas-Álvarez, 2019). This type of conversation is reached when the schoolteacher favors peer interaction with guiding questions and interventions that encourage joint reflection and the dialogic principle of the academic conversation in environments that allow for the social construction of knowledge (Mercer, 1997; Gutiérrez-Ríos, 2014; Meza et al., 2021; Cárdenas et al., 2017)

Moreover, conversations in classrooms allow teachers to distinguish between a class that helps students advance in learning content and a class that facilitates the use of strategies to generate broader and more dynamic interactions. This can often be more interesting—especially for students—although it is not part of the pre-established curricular goals. From this point of view, the conversation reveals particular interests and aims to address specific topics and purposes, even if they have informal characteristics and do not have predetermined limits.

Final considerations

The starting point of these reflections was the pedagogical research conducted during interactions and conversations with school teachers from different Latin American countries, which were sponsored by the Ibero-American Network of Studies on Orality (Gutiérrez-Ríos, 2020). These interactions highlighted the complexity of transforming the classroom into a space of conversation while exploring critical thinking.

At this point, some questions and proposals remain: how can other teachers come to the same conclusions? How can the importance of changing classrooms through the involvement of students by suggesting conversations beyond the explanation of an activity be achieved? How can listening to the expressed learning needs of a child be taken on? How can awareness be raised regarding the importance of considering other ways of seeing the world or the objects of study by means of conversations while agreeing to disagree agreeably and making them part of the learning process and the construction of knowledge? To what extent do feelings and a lack of motivation affect reasoning and the construction of knowledge in the dialogue between children and schoolteachers? Would a schoolteacher be prepared to ask relevant questions in order to get to know their students beyond a superficial relationship with the purpose of advancing in the construction of critical thinking?

Indeed, questions play a fundamental role in conversations and at school, with important implications in the construction of knowledge and the activation of thinking. In this sense, this paper highlights the contributions of Freire and Faundez (2013) regarding the pedagogy of the question as the possibility of inquiring into, searching, and being curious about knowledge and science, questioning the fact that schools promote the pedagogy of the answer while disregarding the question– which has a greater foundation– given its link to the origin of knowledge, to philosophy, and to the opportunity for dialogue. These authors aim to support school teachers who value any type of questions from their students, as pointed out by Sagan (2000), for whom a stupid question does not exist since any question may produce knowledge, science, and philosophy. Contrary to this, rejecting, making fun of, or looking down on students may close or obstruct their path toward knowledge. Sharing and stimulating the question in educational settings as an essential pedagogical resource –regardless of the discipline and the content– has been, and continues to be, of great didactic value.

Essentially, this is about contributing to the reflection with the other in an environment that allows for conversational interaction. It is not about having questions ready, but about being in tune with the conversation and knowing how to use them in specific and/or general ways to help students materialize ideas. The question cannot be used blindly to fill in or to cover spaces in an artificial way (Chambers, 2007). In the dialogic experience, questions play the role of sheltering unspoken attitudes of understanding, confrontation, negotiation, dissent, and agreement. This means that the search for dialogue depends on an attitude of willingness and disposition, as well as a process that admits disagreement in order to achieve moderate dissent or definite understanding.

In the contemporary era of expanding virtual interactions, the need for communication and the preservation of connections with others has become really important. This is revealed in a claim for the presence of faces, bodies, and voices that go with the conversation through screens, as it is the primary way of recognizing each other in the forms of feelings, thereby causing synergies and tensions. This form of interaction also reveals different points of view, thus declaring the power of ethics with respect to listening when facing the other’s words and shaping the other´s verbal awareness. This path undoubtedly leads to critical intersubjectivity upon the basis of exercising dialogism and alterity. Virtuality can only survive through conversational interaction.

The dialogic principle enables conversation and listening in the joint construction of knowledge and the development of thought, in the desire to create meaning by means of linguistic discursive forms according to needs and interests, in peer cooperation, and in the communicative interactions linked to educational and sociocultural contexts. In addition, it raises the problem of understanding and the need to create meaning; it enables truth and meaning through a permanent process of feedback and the search for the other’s word. This principle structures and organizes situated oral discursive genres that respond to different individual and collective needs - tales and anecdotes, conversations, dialogues, formulating questions, monologues, debates, and exhibitions, among others. Dialogic interaction, as a bidirectional phenomenon, admits a situational environment of intersubjective, social, and epistemic nature, making conflicts visible, as well as interlocutor points of view, while even reaching private environments that can permeate the academic debate.

Now more than ever, we are revaluing that otherness with whom it is necessary to have a conversation that enables us to keep thinking about educational topics that go beyond our existence. It becomes necessary to seek ways of interaction to allow the circulation of knowledge that builds renewed forms of communicating through voices and listening to make conversations possible. In this context, orality must be affirmed as the foundation of voice and listening, emphasizing the fundamental essence of (our) presence.

Declaraciones finales

Authors’ contribution. Yolima Gutiérrez: research, methodology, textual planning, conceptualization, formal analysis, supervision, writing of the original draft, revision and proofreading of the entire article; Gloria Rojas: research, textual planning, conceptualization, formal analysis, supervision, writing of the original draft, revision and proofreading of the entire article.

Conflicts of interest. The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Funding. This publication arose from the research project: “Didactics of oral discursive genres that construct critical thinking in Latin America. [Nodes in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico]“, Iberoamerican Network of Studies on Orality (RIEO); and the research project: ”Conversation as a discursive genre for ethical listening in diverse school environments”, CIDC - Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas.

Ethical implications. The authors declare that this article has no ethical implications in writing or publication.

Open data. Not applicable.

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