The objective of this article is to analyze the listening exercises in a textbook for foreigners learning Italian with an action-oriented approach. The analysis, based on a sample consisting of one authentic dialog and one semi-authentic one, on a domestic topic, was carried out using tools from conversation analysis. Although the authentic dialog, thanks to the presence of superposition, pauses and self-interruptions, is much richer on the conversational plane than the dialog constructed ad hoc, even the latter contains some pleasant surprises. In fact, as a freely performed dialog, at times it has elements of the spontaneity typical of face-to-face speech. As for the use of an authentic dialog, recorded with the consent of the speakers, this results, in our opinion, in a new scenario, as it legitimizes the possibility of using input from real life in the classroom, without having to renounce the spontaneity of spoken interactions, given that the presence of the observer does not create a false context, but simply creates a new context that must be studied as such.