Teacher’s Politeness Strategies in Classroom Interactions

This study aimed to identify the types of politeness strategies used by the English
teacher in classroom interactions at SMP Negeri 13 Medan, and to analyze the factors
influencing the teacher’s choice of politeness strategies. This research was conducted
because politeness in classroom communication played an important role in creating a
positive learning atmosphere, increasing students’ participation and maintaining
effective classroom interaction. This study applied the politeness strategies theory by
Brown and Levinson (1987) and teacher cognition by Simon Borg (2003) to explain
the factors influencing the teachers’ cognition. Researcher used Qualitative methods
and were obtained from the English teachers’ utterances during teaching and learning
process. The data were collected through classroom observation and semi structured
interviews with English teacher. The data were analyzed using Miles and Huberman’s
(1994) that is data reduction, data display, and conclusion and verification drawing.
The findings showed that the teacher applied four types of politeness strategies namely
positive politeness, negative politeness, bald on record and off record. And the most
dominant was bald on record to control classroom and give direct instructions and
positive politeness to build good relationships and encourage students’ participation.
The factors influencing the use of politeness strategies were management need,
students’ participation, politeness awareness, pedagogical knowledge and teaching
objectives.