Is Listening a Passive Skill? #TESL0120

I knew that listening could not possibly be a passive skill mainly because I've seen (and read) books about how to improve your listening skills.  We even refer to it as a skill which often means that it is something that can be practice and learned voluntarily just as learning an instrument or driving a car.  I was not sure, however, what it was about listening that could be taught?  

It hadn't occurred to me that when we are listening, our minds are doing so many things based on the acoustic signals coming from a speaker, combined with our own basic language knowledge and ability to recognize sounds etc.  Our minds are actively making guesses based on sounds and context,  sometimes filling in gaps of information we don't get or understand.  Our understanding of speech is also affected by how we have predicted the meaning to be, based on what we've heard.  Our predictions are either confirmed or negated with the next utterance and it continues as we listen.  As stated in Wilson J.J.(2008), listening "is an activity that takes place on many levels simultaneously, from recognition of individual phonemes to recognition of patterns or intonation that alert us to irony, sarcasm, anger and delight.  Clearly, it is a receptive rather that a passive skill."  Therefore, it is important to teach our students the skill of listening as it is an integral part of communication and meaning.

Resources:  Wilson, J.J. (2008). How to teach listening (pp.21-24).  Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education Ltd.