Lecturers’ Politeness Strategies In EFL Classroom with Multicultural Background

Abstract

The choice of words used by lecturers such as politeness strategies in the classroom interaction is very important, not only for controlling the classroom but also for the process of acquiring the language itself. This study is aimed at investigating lecturers’ politeness strategies in criticizing teaching performance of students with multicultural backgrounds in a microteaching class. This qualitative study was conducted with students from multicultural backgrounds. The subject of this study was a lecturer who taught microteaching. Findings show that there are four most frequent criticism strategies used by the lecturer: demand for change, indicating standard, advice about change and other hints. In addition, the highest proportion of politeness strategies applied by the lecturer is occupied by positive politeness, off-record strategy, bald on record, and negative politeness. It implies that the lecturer mostly applies positive politeness in criticizing the students, in order to save the students’ face, get closer, and give more positive feedback to help students develop their teaching performance. Facts also indicate that students’ multicultural backgrounds do not affect too much on the lecturer’s decision in applying politeness strategies, yet it needs to be very careful in delivering them.