Metaphorical Analysis of Infant Teachers' Perceptions on -Infant Play Activities

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify infant teachers' perception of infant play. For this purpose a metaphor analysis method was used in this study. Research problems studied were as follows.First, what is the frequency of infant school teachers' metaphor types for infant play?Second, what are the types of infant teachers’ metaphors for infant play?This study followed the Sentence Completion Test (SCT) used by Reu Soo Min, Han An Na, and Lee Ha Jung (2015) to determine the perception of infant teachers on infant play activities.Thus, the metaphors inspection paper was adapted to achieve the objectives of this study.To complete the analysis, this study selected and surveyed 168 infant’s teachers who worked at 30 care centers, located in Nam Gu and Geum Jung Gu of Busan city. Among the 250 survey papers distributed, 164 survey papers were selected and analyzed from a total of 180 papers collected.The results are as follows.First, infant teachers perceived that infant play had 9 characteristics: development, life, relationship, creativity, experience and learning, freedom, imitation, and variety. Out of the nine characteristics, development, life, relationship and creativity had a high frequency (prevalence) and meaningful interpretation. Second, the fact that infant play is related to development shows that play activities promotes holistic growth and development. Infants learn rules, regulation, and relationships along with physical and cognitive development through play activities. Thus, infant play activities are the same as their lives.This study showed that even though an infant did the same play as others, there was a different interpretation according to each infant.