**4.3. Learning through authentic experiences in classrooms: observing, listening to and interacting with students**

Research on what PSTs learn through authentic experiences in classrooms is overwhelmingly dominated by reports on what they learn from listening to and interacting with supervising teachers. However, there is a dearth of research specifically describing what they learn through their interactions with students in the classrooms.

The idea of learning to observe and listen to students in classrooms is not new. 'Kidwatching' (coined by Yetta Goodman [36]) emerged and evolved over time as a concept which encompasses listening to and observing students in classrooms with the aim of assisting teachers learn to develop responsive practices and enhance their professional work. However, 'kidwatching' has remained a province of teachers rather than as a focused approach for strengthening the learning of PSTs. Moreover, although quality interactions are recognised as a feature of effective teaching, it typically receives little dedicated space for development across many teacher education programs. Research has shown that a limited focus on developing effective classroom interaction leads to a tendency for PSTs to enact, predominantly by default, more traditional communication practices in placement classrooms (such as didactic teacher dominated talk). Their interactive practices are often based on replicating known patterns of interaction experienced in their own school education [33].

Interestingly, research reporting on PSTs observing and listening to students in classrooms appears to be mainly locating in analysing videoed lessons [37], or in lessons focused on the subject of Mathematics [38, 39] or music [40]. This chapter is an attempt to re-theorise the development of quality teaching practices in teacher education [41] and to illustrate how a focus on *practising* interacting with students in classrooms influences what PSTs learn about dialogic teaching from listening to and interacting with their students in their school placements. Furthermore, I aim to show how learning to listen and learning to interact in contextually relevant sites is critical for bridging and extending the theory-practice nexus. It will be argued that to know about the role of classroom interaction for learning is simply not enough, what is required for PSTs to develop a repertoire of dialogic talk moves is overt *designed-in* opportunities to focus on learning to listen, observe and interact with students in classrooms.
