Razan Silawi

I received my BA in psychology and education from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and my MA in learning disabilities from Haifa University. Currently, I’m a PhD student in the department of learning disabilities.

In my PhD research, which is conducted under the supervision of Prof. Anat Prior and Dr. Tamar Degani, we examine the role of executive control in L3 syntax production, with a particular focus on cross-linguistic influence of L1 (Arabic) and L2 (Hebrew) on L3 (English). The study highlights the role of executive control by including a group of individuals diagnosed with ADHD, in addition to assessing individual differences on executive control tasks.

My MA research was conducted under the supervision of Prof. Anat Prior and Dr. Yasmin Shalhoub-Awwad. It focused on calibration during reading comprehension among undergraduates. Particularly, the main question was whether calibration of comprehension is a meta-cognitive ability that might be shared across languages and beyond specific language proficiency. Moreover, we assessed the development of calibration of reading comprehension throughout the academic career of Arabic native speakers in Arabic (L1), Hebrew (L2), and English (L3), by comparing first and third year students. The results showed evidence of calibration of reading comprehension as domain general and showed almost no differences between first- and third-year students. The study was published in the “Language Learning” journal (see Silawi, Shalhoub‐Awwad, & Prior, 2020).

E-Mail: razan.silawi@gmail.com