Introduction: This paper aims to identify the characteristics of verbal communications of P.E. teachers and identify any relevant problems experienced by P.E. teachers in this area. Methods Observation and class role analysis of 36 primary school P.E teachers, using Grade 5 pupils as observation subjects. Results / Discussion By surveying 36 P.E. teachers` verbal communications in class, this study found that P.E. teachers` communication in class are mainly categorized into three groups as follows: question-asking, request and evaluation. Among these three kinds of speech acts, request is calculated as 14 percent higher than the summation of question-asking and evaluation. Among the three sub-categories under the category of request, the definite instruction is on average 30 percent higher than the sum total of suggestion and vague instruction. Consequently, P.E. teachers were shown to be predominantly coercive in performing their roles in class. Under the category of question-asking, the number of Yes/No questions exceeded that of methodological questions and conclusive responses by 28 percent and 30 percent respectively. Therefore, most P.E. teachers play the role of explorer in question-asking verbally. That is, they ask questions to explore the students` knowledge reserve and their interests, which will guide subsequent P.E. teaching. However, those P. E. teachers` question-asking tends to be negligent in opening up the students` mind and assisting them to learn more about the current problems. The lack of reply category in the P.E. verbal communication remains somewhat problematic as a class is not regarded as successful where the students can rarely raise a question or are reluctant to put forth questions.
© Copyright 2008 2008 International Convention on Science, Education and Medicine in Sport: Proceedings, Vol. III. Published by People´s Sports Publishing House. All rights reserved.