This volume of case studies is the companion volume to Jane Vella's 'Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach'. It demonstrates how educators have used Jane Vella's methods in their own work.

In this updated version of her landmark book Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach, celebrated adult educator Jane Vella revisits her twelve principles of dialogue education with a new theoretical perspective gleaned from the discipline of quantum physics. Vella sees the path to learning as a holistic, integrated, spiritual, and energetic process. She uses engaging, personal stories of her work in a variety of adult learning settings, in different countries and with different educational purposes, to show readers how to utilize the twelve principles in their own practice with any type of adult learner, anywhere.

On Teaching and Learning takes the ideas explored inrenowned educator Jane Vella’s best-selling book Learningto Listen, Learning to Teach to the next level and explores howdialogue education has been applied in educational settings aroundthe world. Throughout the book, she shows how to put the principlesand practices of dialogue education into action and usesillustrative stories and examples from her extensivetravels. Dialogue education values inquiry, integrity, andcommitment to equity—values that are also central todemocracy. Learners are treated as beings worthy of respect,recognized for the knowledge and experience they bring to thelearning experience. Dialogue education emphasizes the importanceof safety and belonging. It is an approach that welcomesone’s certainties and one’s questions.

A study of the role of communication in the creation of a more just society

Acknowledging teacher and student dialogue as key to student development, this volume takes a critical perspective on notions of classroom participation, extending previous scholarship to illustrate how critical, dialogic pedagogies can promote equity and inclusivity. In proposing and outlining the parameters of "critical dialogic education," the contributors to this volume document and discuss examples of classroom discourse practices that challenge the monolithic and uncritical discourse practices that traditionally silence minoritized students. Chapters draw on a range of empirical studies and present multimodal data to consider aspects of teacher education; classroom environments; and curricular innovations which promote critical and dialogical student interaction, civic engagement, and linguistic versatility. This book will be of interest to scholars, postgraduate students, and researchers working in the fields of language, classroom discourse, social justice, and critical pedagogies, as well as teacher educators and professional development leaders who work with classroom teachers.

Through numerous examples in a variety of settings, Vella illustrates the effectiveness of her train-the-trainer program: in Chile with community health educators, in rural Arkansas with small business developers, in rural Vermont with trainers from diverse nonprofit organizations, in Syracuse, New York, with literacy professionals, in a southern U.S. veterans hospital with professionals teaching about substance abuse, and in Haiti with community AIDS educators. Each chapter ends with a summary that invites critique and suggestions and presents indicators of changed behavior from individuals who took part in that particular program.

This book offers a collection of Rinaldi's most important articles, lectures and interviews between 1994 to the present day, organized around a number of themes and with a full introduction contextualizing each piece of work.