A Preliminary Study on the Teaching Evaluation Language of Art Teachers in Rural Middle Schools

Haishan ZHU, Ting HUANG

College of Fine Arts, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China

Abstract Teachers’ teaching evaluation language is an important part of art class teaching, which can directly affect students’ interest in art class. Taking the teaching evaluation language of rural art teachers as the research object, this paper analyzes the main problems existing in teachers’ teaching evaluation language through questionnaire survey, case analysis and interview. This paper puts forward some improvement strategies for teachers’ teaching evaluation language from the aspects of management, concept and use, so as to provide some reference for junior middle school art teachers’ teaching evaluation language.

Key words Art in rural middle schools, Teaching evaluation, Evaluation language

1 Introduction

Evaluation language plays a very important role in teaching, whether the teacher’s evaluation is appropriate or not, in the narrow sense, is related to the classroom atmosphere and teaching effect, and in the broad sense, is related to the students’ life-long development, therefore, it deserves enough attention[1]. Therefore, art teachers should pay attention to teaching evaluation language, art teachers’ bad evaluation language will not only make students lose interest in art class, but also affect students’ life-long development.

2 The connotation of teaching evaluation language

Teachers use language as a carrier to evaluate students’ learning situation, learning attitude, behavior and other aspects in the whole teaching process, from which teachers can also get feedback on the teaching situation, which is called teaching evaluation language. Proper teaching evaluation language can not only promote the all-round development of students, but also urge teachers to improve teaching, and then promote the rapid development of art curriculum[2]. Teaching evaluation language can be divided into the language in the broad sense and narrow sense. In a broad sense, evaluation language includes both oral and silent evaluation language. In a narrow sense, evaluation language refers to oral speech evaluation. This paper focuses on oral speech evaluation.

3 Survey on the teaching evaluation language of art teachers in rural middle schools

Through a sampling survey on the current situation of art teaching evaluation in a rural middle school, the subjects are 56 students in the second year of junior high school, and the effective rate of the questionnaire is 100%. The paper selects some representative answers from the question "Do you have any opinions or suggestions on the teaching evaluation language of art teachers?" from the student questionnaire. For example, with regard to the content of teachers’ teaching evaluation language, students "hope that teachers can encourage us more, so that we will be more interested", "hope that when art teachers evaluate our works, they should see not only the advantages and disadvantages of our creative works, but also our hard work attitude when creating". In terms of the attitude towards teachers’ evaluation language, "I hope that teachers’ evaluation can be more sincere, so that I can realize my own mistakes and I can correct them in time". In the way of evaluation, "I hope the teacher will give us more specific evaluation and guidance on the work, rather than the end of the class after showing the work". In the use of evaluation language, "I hope that the language expression can be humorous, witty and gentle, instead of too blunt criticism". The students put forward their own views and suggestions from the content, attitude and way of teachers’ evaluation language. To sum up, we can see the influence of teachers’ teaching evaluation language on the cultivation of students’ interest in art and imagination. Therefore, there is an urgent need to find out the internal factors of the problem and solve it.

4 The main problems in the teaching evaluation language of art teachers in rural middle schools

There are some problems in the language of teachers’ teaching evaluation, first of all, it is due to the fact that the school management is relatively loose and there are no relevant guidelines. The second is the problem of the subject of teaching evaluation. Teachers’ requirements for their own teaching evaluation language are in a spontaneous state, neglecting to cultivate students’ observation, imagination and creativity. There is still a lack of systematic theoretical knowledge and practical guidance in concepts, ways and methods[3].

4.1 The school does not attach importance to the management of art teachers’ teaching evaluation languageIn the process of field investigation, the management of teachers’ teaching evaluation language in most schools is relatively loose. Schools mainly assess teachers’ teaching work in terms of students’ achievements, while teachers pay too much attention to teaching contents and teaching results, ignoring the influence of teaching evaluation language. In addition, most schools also lack systematic theoretical learning and practical guidance for the training of teachers’ teaching evaluation language. Most of the training practices or exchange seminars organized by the school are aimed at the relevant teaching contents and forms. The school hardly conducts special training for teachers’ teaching evaluation language, and ignores the ways, methods and functions of teachers’ teaching evaluation language. As we all know, teachers’ teaching evaluation language has a certain impact on students’ physical and mental health, and students’ physical and mental health is also closely related to the cultivation of their interest in learning. In life, many students are tired of learning a subject because they don’t like a teacher’s inappropriate evaluation language. Therefore, schools should teach students in accordance with their aptitude, strengthen their concern for students’ physical and mental health, and attach importance to the influence of teachers’ teaching evaluation language on students’ physical and mental health.

4.2 The concept of teacher evaluation is weakBecause of the influence of the examination system, the heavy teaching task, the limitation of teaching level, professional standard and communication ability, teachers ignore the internal cause of "student orientation" in the teaching process, ignore the influence of teaching evaluation language, the evaluation method is arbitrary, and the concept of evaluation is weak. Through the question in the questionnaire survey, "Do teachers often evaluate you?", 56% of the students choose "no". There are even some teachers who have never evaluated their students, and some teachers even forget making any inappropriate comments on their students’ works after class. Most teachers do not care about this kind of random teaching evaluation language, their teaching evaluation attitude is negative, ignoring the role of teachers’ evaluation language. Due to the limitations of their own professional knowledge, some teachers are not good at communicating with students, resulting in students’ confusion and emotional cognitive delusions in the process of learning. For example, one student talked about the influence of the art teacher on his evaluation: "In the last junior high school art class, the teacher asked us to learn the collocation of colors. At that time, the teacher stressed that red must not be matched with green, saying that the collocation was very tacky. I was very confused, and I asked the teacher why red and green were ugly. Obviously there were a lot of eye-catching combinations of red and green, but the teacher did not pay attention to me, and he might think I was making trouble". From this, we can see that due to the lack of relevant professional knowledge, the art teacher improperly evaluates the students’ works, avoids the students’ questions, and does not communicate and discuss with them. This leads to students’ speculation and misunderstanding of teachers’ attitude, which, to some extent, will dispel students’ enthusiasm for daring to ask questions and inhibit the development of students’ independent thinking and communication ability.

4.3 Improper use of evaluation languageInappropriate teaching evaluation language will not only affect students’ learning attitude, physical and mental health, but also affect students’ imagination and creativity, and affect the overall teaching level[4]. Art teachers’ teaching evaluation language is prone to the following errors in the way of expression.

4.3.1Rough evaluation language. When art teachers carry out teaching evaluation, they need to teach students in accordance with their aptitude, change their methods, pay attention to the wording, do not be too random and rude, and consider students’ feelings. In an art class, the teacher instructed the students to make creations, the teacher said, "Don’t draw a dolphin’s nose so long, it won’t look like a dolphin. Wipe it off with an eraser". The word "wipe" is nothing more than a revision in the eyes of the teacher, but in the minds of the students it is a negation of their own creativity in painting. "In a junior high school art class, we learned to draw three-dimensional white balls, and then asked the teacher about the skills of drawing small balls, the teacher told me that the shadow of the small white ball was blue. But I really could not see it at all. Wasn’t the shadow black? The teacher then wondered if I was color-blind, but I was really not color-blind. I was ridiculed by my classmates that I was color-blind. I felt very uncomfortable and began to resist taking an art class." It is obvious that the teacher’s evaluation language of the students is too hasty and rude, so that the students are denied and ridiculed, and the students will be resistant to this course.

4.3.2Single evaluation language. The results of the student questionnaire showed that if the students answered the correct answer, the teacher only said "yes" and "correct" and "very good", which accounted for 64%, or specifically pointed out that the correct aspect of the student’s answers to the question, which accounted for 14%. Thus it can be seen that many art teachers still choose to simply display the works completed by the students, using simple language for teaching evaluation, lacking in substantive evaluation significance. In view of the question of "What is the most impressive evaluation language left to you by art teachers since childhood?", the comments given by art teachers to students are generally "good painting", "continue to work hard", and only a small number of art teachers evaluate students as imaginative or with other encouraging language. Simple or simply encouraging evaluation language can stimulate students’ enthusiasm for learning, but it lacks correct guidance.

4.3.3Too general evaluation method. The evaluation method is too general, there is no specific direction or the direction is false, almost all the language is stereotyped evaluation language, which is useless and ineffective for students. Generally speaking, it can be divided into two situations. First, the cooperative inquiry learning advocated by the new curriculum reform is used by many art teachers. In the process of teaching by means of group cooperation, teachers only evaluate the group representatives and do not evaluate the good or bad behavior in the process of group discussion and group cooperation. Second, the direction of the evaluation object is not objective, and the evaluation language is too general. For example, "I went down from the podium to see the works of some students. It seemed that all of you have mastered the skills of using pens, so let’s learn to use colors next". In order to complete the teaching task, although the evaluation object points to individual students, it is in the name of all students. Using this subjective, one-sided and formal feedback language to evaluate students’ learning situation will affect students’ judgment ability and learning attitude.

5 The strategies for optimizing the teaching evaluation language of art teachers in rural middle schools

Whether the teacher’s comments are appropriate or not plays a very important role in the enthusiasm of students’ learning and the cultivation and shaping of their personality[4]. In order to improve the level of art teachers’ teaching evaluation language and stimulate students’ interest in learning art, based on the main problems existing in teachers’ teaching evaluation language at present, this paper puts forward some strategies to improve the teachers’ teaching evaluation language from the aspects of management, concept and use.

5.1 Strengthening the management of teacher evaluation languageFirst of all, the school needs to put forward the correct requirements and matters needing attention about the language of teaching evaluation. In the aspect of school assessment system, the examination of teachers’ teaching evaluation language should be included in Detailed Rules for Quantitative Assessment of Teachers. On the one hand, the teaching situation of teachers can be randomly checked by the teaching group, and the teacher evaluation language can be recorded by peer observation to carry out "teacher mutual evaluation". On the other hand, teachers’ teaching evaluation language can be assessed and scored by students anonymously. Secondly, schools and education departments should carry out more symposiums on teacher evaluation language, encourage more art class lectures, and improve the professional level and teaching evaluation level of art teachers through mutual communication between teachers. Finally, schools can advocate the way of "reflective diary", and make teachers pay attention to the appropriateness of their own evaluation language, so as to promote the whole team of teachers to make progress in teacher evaluation language and attach importance to the development of students’ physical and mental health.

5.2 Strengthening teachers’ consciousness of evaluationIn view of the various phenomena of art teachers’ weak consciousness of teaching evaluation, schools should strengthen teachers’ awareness of teaching evaluation and improve teachers’ cognition of the language of teaching evaluation. As an important part of the teaching process, teaching evaluation language is an effective means to promote the development of students. Teaching evaluation language can not only affect the classroom teaching atmosphere, but also affect students’ learning mood, learning motivation and self-confidence, and even affect the lifelong development of students’ learning. From the perspective of educational psychology, teachers should pay attention to the influence of teaching evaluation language on students, and learn and understand the language skills and methods of teaching evaluation, such as motivational evaluation, ingenious evaluation and humorous evaluation. In teaching practice, teachers should use teaching evaluation language flexibly and appropriately, not to avoid students’ questions, but to stimulate students’ ability to question, think and innovate, and to discuss the "matching of red and green" with students in order to achieve unexpected teaching results.

5.3 Improving teachers’ evaluation language abilityThe importance of teachers’ teaching evaluation language in the process of art teaching is self-evident. Praise and encouragement evaluation language is undoubtedly important for every student, especially for art, which pays attention to the cultivation of students’ creativity.

5.3.1It should be emotional in the face of rough evaluation language. The above-mentioned art teacher in the classroom publicly questioned that the students were color-blind, and such invisible violent language is undoubtedly cruel to junior high school students. Junior high school teachers should understand the psychological characteristics of junior high school students, their self-awareness develops rapidly, their emotions are impulsive and unstable, and they gradually become sensitive. At this time, teachers should patiently teach students. Such rude language, not to mention the negative impact on students’ mentality, will only make students become more and more afraid to ask questions to teachers and gradually lose their curiosity and interest in art. The adults are relatively aggressively harmed by rude language, not to mention junior high school students who are in adolescence. When evaluating students, teachers should have a dialogue with the attitude of "equality between teachers and students", express the emotion of "love" through language, and the language should convey emotion. Only the evaluation language with emotion can influence and motivate the students.

5.3.2There should be diversity in the face of the singleness of evaluation language. Through the student questionnaire, it is found that some teachers have the phenomenon of abuse of praise. Repetitive and formal evaluation languages such as "what else?" lack substantive motivation, which leads to students’ indifference to the praise of teachers. Short and single comments such as "good, very good" are too empty for students, and students don’t know if they are doing the right thing. Due to the psychological characteristics of junior high school students in a semi-mature and semi-childish state, they no longer simply accept teachers’ random encouraging praise, but they hope to get teachers’ sincere words and constructive suggestions. Therefore, teachers should objectively and accurately point out the students’ advantages and disadvantages, affirm the students’ excellent performance, remind the students’ shortcomings, and correct them.

5.3.3Integrity should be considered in the face of too general evaluation methods. Art teachers only evaluate the group representatives in the group cooperation class, but do not really evaluate the situation of each student in the group learning process. What’s more, they regard the individual as the whole class for the evaluation, so that students slowly begin to care little about the evaluation of teachers, and their learning enthusiasm is also deeply affected. Therefore, when using evaluation language, we should take the whole evaluation object into consideration, keenly capture the characteristics of different students, teach students in accordance with their aptitude, give affirmation and praise in time, and form a teaching evaluation concept of "all students as the center", to enhance students’ learning confidence and improve students’ learning effect.

6 Conclusion

The quality of teachers’ teaching evaluation language is directly related to the success or failure of education and teaching and the quality of teachers and students. Schools and education departments should attach importance to professional training in the teacher evaluation language. Teachers should enhance the awareness of teaching evaluation, not only improve the professional level and other aspects of literacy, but also improve the literacy of teaching evaluation language. In teaching practice, we should use teaching evaluation language flexibly and appropriately, and constantly reflect on teaching evaluation, so as to improve the development level of art teaching.