Hadar Netz

Gifted Conversations: Discursive Patterns in Gifted Classes

Despite the attested association between giftedness and high verbal abilities, and despite the central role attributed to classroom discourse analysis in educational research, discourse in gifted classes has not received due scholarly attention. This study takes a first step toward filling this gap. This study offers a microanalysis of a corpus of recorded and transcribed interactions from classes of gifted students in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This study focuses on student initiations and on the ways teachers handle these initiations. It is argued that the preponderance of student initiations in the classes observed sets a fertile ground for dialogic discourse to develop. However, student initiations do not guarantee the emergence of dialogic discourse, since teachers sometimes employ instructional practices that hinder its emergence.

Do Marked Topics Enhance Memory

Do Marked Topics Enhance Memory? We examined the effects of markedness, the deviation from the canonical Subject-Verb-Object structure in English, on the memory of listeners for the topic of the sentence. We used three marked topic constructions: Left-Dislocation, Object-Fronting, and Subject-Marking. Sentences with these structures were inserted as the 6th item in lists of 12 canonical sentences. In all sentences the topic was the name of a man. We measured recall of the critical name. The results revealed that topics of Left-Dislocated sentences were recalled more than topics of the other constructions, with topics of Object-Fronting sentences recalled the least. We briefly discuss how sentence processing procedures might give rise to these effects.

A cross-cultural analysis of disagreements in classroom discourse: Comparative case studies from England, the United States, and Israel

Abstract How do cultural and institutional factors interact in shaping preference structures? This paper presents a cross-cultural analysis of disagreements in three different classroom settings: (1) a year 6 (ages 11–12) mainstream class in England, (2) a fifth-grade class of gifted students in the United States, and (3) a fourth-grade mainstream class in Israel. The aim of the study is to investigate how disagreements are enacted in these settings, exploring the influence of cultural communicative norms on the one hand and pedagogical goals and norms on the other. The study highlights culture-specific discursive patterns that emerge as the teacher and students manage a delicate balance between often clashing cultural and educational motives.

Language Corrections and Language Ideologies in Israeli Hebrew-Speaking Classes.

ABSTRACT This article is about language corrections in Israeli Hebrew-speaking primary classrooms. The ideological significance of language corrections, particularly within the highly contested context of Israeli society and Modern Hebrew, underlies the current study. Teachers in Israeli, Hebrew-speaking classes were found to frequently correct not only their students’ language, but also their own. Furthermore, teachers use language corrections not only for instructional purposes (i.e. modeling standard or super-standard language), but also for regulatory purposes (i.e. emphasizing their authority when managing behavior). Interestingly, in contrast to previous studies, we did not encounter explicit student resistance to teacher corrections, indicating Hebrew-speaking students’ internalization and acceptance of the standard language ideology. Teachers’ self- and other-corrections, as well as the metalinguistic comments accompanying these corrections, likewise reveal a monolithic language ideology, bearing significant pedagogical implications.