The purpose of this study is to discuss the characteristic of listening and the Korean listening education which depends on it. The goal of language education should be started with the characteristic of language-function. Therefore, it is necessary to search the teaching contents, methods, and materials of Korean listening education from listening characteristics. The results of this study can be summarized as follows: First, I have investigated the definition and characteristic of listening for the corrected listening education. It can be belived that the characteristics of listening are comprehension-action, listener-oriented, colloquialism, interaction, and processing. These were extracted from purpose, main agent, material, method, view-point. Second, I set up the goals of listening eduction depended on the characteristic of listening. (a) A material of listening teaching should show the activity of listener. (b) A teaching content should be orgnized in a discourse and a teaching method is made to interaction. Especially, the listener under communication is prominently reflected in the listening teaching-learning. The processing of listening is necessarily derived from a comprehension and a interaction. Third, I invesitigated the role of listener in the Korean textbooks in which the role of the listener was restrictive and passive. Consequently, I strongly insist that listening process be reinforced as nature of listening in order to improve the listening ability of leaner.