Gifted Adolescent Readers’ Perceptions of How Teachers Should (or Should Not) Listen During Dialogic Discourse

Effective listening is essential when teachers facilitate instructional classroom discussions. While the intersection between teacher listening and how students engage in discussions has received a wealth of research attention from other fields, this important phenomenon continues to be underresearched in the gifted and literacy education fields. To deepen our understanding of the phenomenon of teacher listening from students’ perspectives, we conducted an in-depth focus group study with middle school gifted students from five schools in a Southeastern state in the United States. Findings of our data analysis revealed four key interrelated themes: (a) teachers as active listeners, (b) teacher character traits, (c) student feelings and behaviors, and (d) listening as a pedagogical tool. Of significance, this study revealed students’ perspectives of how gifted education teachers should listen and that their listening influences students’ sense of connectedness and motivation for learning. Implications for professional learning and recommendations for future research are discussed.