Teacher’s Opening Moves in Classroom Interaction at Grade XI SMAN 1 Tiganderket

This study was about teacher’s opening moves in classroom interaction. The aims of this study were (1) to find out the types of teacher’s opening moves used in classroom interaction based on Sinclair and Coulthard model, (2) to find out the reasons why the teacher used the most dominant type based on Dunkin and Biddle,1974. The design of the research used qualitative research. The data were collected in three ways by observing, video recording and interviewing. The data were analyzed based on Dunkin and Biddle theory. The results of this study were the following, (1) there were nine types of opening moves used by the teacher in classroom interaction, namely, teacher elicit (61 times or 47,65%), teacher inform (20 times or 15,62%), teacher direct (22 times or 17,20%), teacher check (3 times or 2,35%), teacher listing (5 times or 3,90%), re-initiation(i) (7 times or 5,46%), re-initiation(ii) (once or 0,80%), repeat (twice or 1,56%) and bound initiation (7 times or 5,46%). (2) The reasons of using the most dominant type of opening move were the teacher believed by initiating elicit type, she could know student’s basic understanding, it could create an effective classroom interaction, it could push the students on process of flashback, and it could encourage the students’ confidence to speak up in the classroom. Those reasons were affected by the teacher’s formative experience, training, and attribute which belongs to the presage variable and was affected by context variable which refers to the students’ social background, attitude, interest, and motivation.