A Comparative Study Of Classroom Evaluation Language Among Teachers With Different Teaching Styles In Senior High School

Teachers’ evaluation language in the classroom is an indispensable and important part of teacher’s classroom language.It is the language used by teachers to provide feedback on students’ learning methods,learning attitudes and results.Some scholars have analyzed the factors that affect the current situation of English teachers’ use of classroom evaluation language from different angles,which can be mainly divided into teachers’ personal factors and external factors.As one of the important influential factors,the influence of teaching style on teachers’ classroom evaluation language is not yet known.Thereby this research combines these two aspects and intends to compare the use of classroom evaluation language among senior high school English teachers with different teaching styles.The main research questions are as follows: 1)What is the general situation of classroom evaluation language use among English teachers with different teaching styles? 2)What are the similarities and differences in the use of classroom evaluation language among teachers with different teaching styles? The research adopts three instruments: questionnaire,classroom observation and interview.The research subjects of questionnaire were 70 high school English teachers.The subjects of classroom observation are 8 high school English teachers who fit in different teaching styles,with two of them in each of four teaching styles,namely,the Judicial type,the Radical type,the Executive type,and the Local type.Among these 8 high school English teachers,four are invited for the interview,with one from each type of the teaching styles.The major findings are as follows: 1)The general situation of classroom evaluation language used by high school English teachers of different teaching styles is as follows: The ranking of four teaching styles in terms of the number of classroom evaluation language used by teachers is Radical type,Judicial type,Local type,and Executive type.As for the type of teachers’ classroom evaluation language,the most commonly used one is affirmation and encouragement,and the vocabulary and words they used are relatively simple.The evaluation content lacks inspiration and guidance,and the evaluation focuses on students’ mastery of language knowledge.The teachers’ classroom evaluation language lacks pertinence and ignores the differences of students.2)Senior high school English teachers with different teaching styles have similarities and differences in the use of classroom evaluation language.The similarity lies in that teachers of four teaching styles tend to use affirmation and encouragement evaluation language in these three types of classes.The content of the evaluation mainly focuses on students’ mastery of language knowledge.The differences in classroom evaluation language use among teachers with different teaching styles are as follows: Teachers with Judicial type,Executive type,and Local type are more inclined to evaluate students’ acquisition and understanding of text knowledge in the reading process.However,Radical teachers pay more attention to the cultivation of students’ emotional attitudes.The evaluation language used by Judicial,Radical and Local teachers is not balanced when they choose the evaluation subjects.However,Executive teachers can consider both the individual and the class.The four types of teachers evaluate students for different purposes.The Judicial teacher evaluates students to activate the classroom atmosphere.The Radical and Local teachers test students’ mastery of knowledge by asking questions in class and then give their feedback by the evaluation language.The Executive teachers often require students to answer questions as a form of "punishment." Therefore,negative and corrective evaluation language is often used to remind students to pay attention to their classroom behavior.Based on the above results,this study proposes the following suggestions:Teachers should follow the concept of developmental evaluation,understand their teaching styles and improve their deficiencies when they use evaluation language.Besides,teachers should also improve their language ability,self-learning ability and reflective ability based on their understanding of the differences between students.