Using Art to Evaluate language

Laura Laurentiu, Romania

The first time I brought paintings to class and used them to evaluate my students I was amazed at the response. The flow of imagination ran free for all twenty minutes in which the pupils had to achieve their task. However, it did not stop there. The next class, I got more questions about the painter, about the paintings and about other paintings. I even had pupils come with additional information although it had not been requested. The exchange of information, the discussions that resulted and the high degree of involvement from the pupils surprised me.

I had used pictures in class before but had not been able to explain why the pupils had shown more interest in those paintings than in the commissioned pictures that came with the textbook or with the accompanying materials. So I asked my pupils why they preferred the paintings I had brought. And they told me the paintings looked more interesting and more inspiring than the textbook pictures. I reminded them that they did have some paintings in their textbook as well but they said it was not the same. The simple fact that the paintings had been introduced as handouts, in colour, and not just as part of the textbook, made them more attractive and special. The pupils perceived them as intriguing and mysterious, as something that had to be deciphered. There was a message hidden in the paintings and they had to find it. And that was very appealing.

had happened; there had occurred a shift in focus. The message had become more important than the language used to deliver it. And that was what I really wanted from my pupils: I wanted them to get creative, to tell me a story. Accuracy was not what I was interested in. I wanted more than that.

Creativity entails more than just being accurate, than speaking or writing without making any mistakes. Accuracy is very restrictive and intimidating. You can be accurate and have no spark, you can produce something completely boring and uninteresting for both the pupil and the teacher. And no one wants that because it is felt as a waste of time and energy. Being creative means you have to get involved, to become part of your task. Your personal experience becomes part of your presentation. You have the task and you speculate, predict, anticipate, compare or contrast it with your everyday life, your experiences, your feelings, your success or failure. You go beyond all these and try to find an explanation, a reason, that hidden something that is the source of everything important in that painting. That quest becomes an experience in itself, which takes you outside the classroom.

I found that art could stimulate pupils and help you with your teaching. It can turn something boring and stressing into something pleasant and interesting. Finding the reason why a pretty girl is smiling becomes more important than thinking about the right way to use a tense or the other. They almost forget they are being tested, they are more relaxed and they can perform better.

It takes genuine skill to make them forget they are being tested and have them really show you what they can do with their English. If teachers can motivate pupils to use their English, not just deliver something in English, then they have accomplished their task.

Naturally, teachers cannot use art to evaluate everything, but they can use it to evaluate more than they can imagine. I use it mostly with functional language, but one can also use it with grammarand vocabulary as they all go together. Thus, one is able to evaluate more things at once. It is up to the teacher and what he or she is interested in evaluating. The activities that can be done may vary and that is why using paintings to evaluate is so stimulating and interesting for all the parts involved.

Let us take two examples of activities the teacher can employ for evaluation in a less stressing environment, using two sets of paintings by Edouard Manet (1832-1883), a French Impressionist painter.

The length of the written work, the time allotted and setting of the testing may vary according to the teacher's wish. As for the level, the teacher should adapt and adjust the difficulty of the task according to the level of the pupils. I have used the same paintings and almost the same tasks for intermediate to advanced pupils. As long as it is task-related and in English, I allow pupils to talk to each other while working in pairs and use an English dictionary.

Set 1

Picture 1: Argenteuil

Picture 2: Boating

Aim: To evaluate present simple and/or continuous; vocabulary of everyday activities, job related, environment, relationships.
Skills: Speaking, writing
Pairing: Individual or in pairs. When writing, if you decide to go for pair work, both pupils must contribute to the story and hand in their own separate paper. The teacher must set the rules for working in pairs, whether both pupils can have the same story or a similar story line but different stories.

Task 1: Write a paragraph in which you describe one day in Jacques' life. You may choose the format of your paragraph: a letter, a diary entry, an article, a pupil's composition etc. You may use the lines below to start or you can choose your own beginning.

'My name is Jacques. I am a boatman. I…'

Task 2: You are Jacques. You are being interviewed for Exciting and Dangerous, a British television show. The reporter has asked you to talk about your daily activities, people you meet etc.

Note: Pupils love foreign names. When I used the name John, it made no difference, but when I tried with Jacques, Valentino or Klaus, or any other name that sounded strange and foreign, their attitude changed accordingly, they sometimes even spoke with a French, Italian or German accent or something similar, to make their oral presentation more convincing.

Set 2

Picture 3: M and Mme Auguste Manet

Picture 4: In the Conservatory -Study of Mme Jules Guillemet

Aim: To evaluate asking questions using the past simple and/or continuous, interrogative pronouns and other question words; vocabulary of relationships, family, friends.
Skills: Writing
Pairing: Pair work, individual work
Note: When you give the pupils the paintings, do not give them the title of the paintings as it may influence them.

Task: Individual work on a separate sheet of a paper - After looking at both paintings, ask five questions about the man who appears in the paintings so as to clarify the relationship between him and the two women. Do not ask questions about his age, height or weight. Do not answer your questions. After having written your five questions, exchange papers with your partner. Now answer your partner's questions under the form of a short article for a tabloid, in which you write about that man's social life.

Please check the Teaching English Through Multiple Intelligences course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Creative Writing course at Pilgrims website.