This study attempts to examine the elements and types of linguistic interaction
between teachers and students by analyzing a case of linguistic interactions in a
physical education class at a school for visually impaired students. For this purpose,
four visually impaired students enrolled in Class B at a special middle school located
in City A, South Korea took part in this study, as well as the teachers in charge of
their physical education class. Moreover, 12 sessions of ordinary physical education
classes were recorded to capture class data, and all the linguistic expressions used
by the teachers and students during the classes were transcribed from these
collected data. The transcribed data were analyzed using a class analysis framework
prepared specifically for this study.
The study results can be summarized as follows. First, as to the initiation of
linguistic interaction in said physical education classes, 201 of 249 (80.7%) interactions
were initiated by teachers, and 48 of 249 (19.3%) by students. Second, all 201 of
these teacher-initiated linguistic interactions were questions of which 168 (83.6%)
were closed-type questions and eight (3.95%) were open-type questions. Third, there
were 344 student responses to these questions; among them, short answers were the
most frequent (287; 83.47%). Fourth, teachers provided 284 instances of feedback;
among them, there were 192 (67.6%) cases of instant feedback and 99 cases
(32.06%) of delayed feedback.
The linguistic interactions between teachers and students at a physical education
class within a school for visually impaired students were examined as discussed. These
study results can be used as fundamental data in improving the quality of physical
education classes for the visually impaired.