Teachers’ Directive Speech Acts in Classroom Interaction
Pragmatic Strategies and Student Responses in Junior High School EFL Classrooms
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24256/foster-jelt.v7i4.523Keywords:
Classroom Interaction, Directive Speech Acts, EFL Classroom, Pragmatic Strategies, Student responsesAbstract
This qualitative descriptive study examines teachers’ directive speech acts and students’ verbal and non-verbal responses in junior high school EFL classrooms at SMP Negeri 6 Makassar, Indonesia. Data were collected from eight recorded lessons involving four English teachers, observation checklists, coding sheets, and one semi-structured interview with each teacher. Searle’s speech act theory guided directive classification, while classroom discourse perspectives informed interpretation of interactional sequences. Politeness markers, supportive wording, variation in directness, and English–Indonesian code-switching were examined as features of directive formulation. Of 108 directives, 36 were commands (33.33%), 24 invitations (22.22%), 19 requests (17.59%), 15 suggestions (13.89%), and 14 prohibitions (12.96%). Student responses varied by context: one student answered “Elephant,” some students began opening their books after a bilingual instruction, and a hesitant student volunteered after encouragement and an offer of extra points. Continued whispering after a request to stop talking illustrated partial compliance. These examples show context-dependent student uptake rather than a fixed causal relationship between directive strategies and responses. Observable compliance was not treated as proof of comprehension, and silence was interpreted cautiously.
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