Indonesian Teachers’ Directives In English Language Classrooms

Abstract

<p>English language classrooms as real language settings provide ample linguistic data, be they produced by the teachers or the students, as there are some interactions in exchanging thoughts, feelings, or ideas. Speech acts theory indicates that in using the language, people not only create an isolated series of sentences, but also carry out actions by either doing something or making others do something. By using classroom observations conducted in twelve English language classrooms, this study seeks to describe types of sentence forms and kinds of strategies used by the teachers in giving order. The findings indicate that the teachers in the Department of English, Universitas Negeri Malang, who are in a position of authority over the students, do not always impose on their students in making them do what the teachers want them to do. Even though the interactions in the classrooms are not equal as the amount of teacher talk dominates the teaching and learning process, the students (as the hearer) are aware that they should adhere to the teachers’ speech acts of ordering to be successful in their study. <strong></strong></p><p> </p><p><strong>Keywords: </strong><em>English language classrooms, speech acts theory, directives, sentence forms, speech acts strategies. </em></p>