Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS a study on teacher’s politeness in the EFL classroom

INTRODUCTION

Background to the study

During the last six years teaching English for freshmen and sophomores, my colleagues and I have witnessed a rather disturbing phenomenon in which intermediate and upper-intermediate L2 students were often reluctant to raise their voice in English in the classroom In retrospect, I found myself in the same situation as my students Were it not for the teacher’s encouragement or acknowledgement of my ideas, I would not have had the willingness to raise my voice in class “Teacher’s encouragements would probably be the solution for my students”, I thought I then took into consideration this experience when planning the lessons I spent much time thinking about the language I would use in class, so that through my saying, I could encourage and motivate my students to speak more Still, I felt quite puzzled Much as I planned the language used beforehand, I failed to stir up the class atmosphere sometimes

Why the students show little interest in learning English in class? Is there anything a teacher can do, besides giving encouragements, to stimulate the student’s interest?

It comes to my realization that in a specific language learning environment, classroom activities hosted (not controlled, but guided) by teacher helps shape a special interpersonal relationship This is similar to any

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2 other social relationship To promote the effective communication as well as to develop good relationship or togetherness, being polite could be seen as the one of the core elements in social interactions The teachers, hence, probably should take into consideration “how to speak” and “what to speak” so that they could sound more polite in the classroom For instance, utterances such as please, would you and thank you are regarded as polite in teacher-students interaction

Being aware of how politeness strategies are employed in the teacher’s utterances, accordingly, is also of significance.

Rationale to the study

Teacher’s language in EFL classroom has widely been considered the most important factor affecting the teaching-learning process It is because the teacher’s language is not only for classroom management but also for the process of students’ knowledge acquisition (Nunan, 1991) There are several activities universally conducted by the teacher in the classroom, such as giving the student’s instructions, motivating the class, and evaluating the students

More importantly, teacher’s language in the classroom is also the major medium for L2 learners to understand the knowledge That is to say, in EFL classroom, English is not only the target for students to learn but also the medium for the teaching-learning process English used in L2 classroom is not only the goal of the lesson but also how this goal is achieved, in other words (Richards & Lockhart, 1996) ELF teachers, thus, play the role as the models for their students to imitate Krashen (1995) asserts that if the teacher’s language is used properly in EFL classroom, it would pave the way for the best input for the learner’s language learning process The appropriateness of the teacher’s language in classroom context could be defined as “how the teacher speaks” to make students feel comfortable, i.e they do not feel offended by the teacher’s utterances As such, the teacher’s way of speaking should not cause a

3 threat to the student’s face According to Brown and Levinson (1987) to mitigate face-threat, further, create good teacher-students interaction, the teacher is supposed to be polite in the classroom Politeness is a common social phenomenon and a classroom is one society in which communication occurs between teachers and students Thus, politeness should also be a moral code in the teaching-learning process In respect to language, politeness corresponds to the use of indirect speech acts or using certain lexical items such as “please”,

“sorry”, and “thank you” (Watts, 2003) That is to say, teachers’ politeness in the EFL classroom can be recognized linguistically through the structural form and communication function of the utterances, especially in the event of teacher-student interaction

A previous study by Jiang (2010) on Teacher’s politeness in EFL class (a case study of Chinese EFL learners) concluded that politeness does exist in EFL classroom Furthermore, it was alos concluded that teacher’s politeness strategies did contribute to both teaching and learning Jiang, through his analysis, claimed that politeness in the classroom contributed to the effective relationship, created a friendly and lively atmosphere and will affect the mutual understanding and the relationship between student and teacher A similar conclusion was reached by the study conducted by Peng, Cai, and Xie (2014) on college teacher’s politeness strategies in EFL classroom The authors asserted that teachers in EFL classroom are highly aware of politeness strategies and often used negative politeness and positive politeness as their strategies in the classroom Teachers preferred to use positive politeness as it helped the students to develop their self-image.

In Vietnam, there has been little research investigating on teacher’s utterances in EFL classroom, let alone teacher’s politeness strategies in asking for student’s clarification That is to say, teacher’s use of politeness strategies as well as its influence on the teaching-learning process has not been dealt with

4 in-depth in Vietnam, especially in the university context Furthermore, to my observation, freshmen and sophomores in my faculty tend to show more interest and enthusiasm in learning English with young teachers Such a phenomenon has posed a question of how young teachers employ politeness strategies, thus, they could establish a close relationship with students in the EFL class

With a view to addressing the aforementioned gaps, this study aims at investigating how politeness strategies employed by one Vietnamese teacher can be a variable that enhances teacher-student interaction, further, improves L2 students’ learning in EFL classroom

Considering the objectives of the research, the research would seek the answer for these three following research questions:

Question 1: What politeness strategies are used by the teacher in the EFL classroom?

Question 2: What are the students’ perceptions of the effectiveness and appropriateness of their teacher’s utterances in EFL classroom?

When the thesis is completed, it would be beneficial to teachers and L2 leaners It also documents several key contributions made to the research body of politeness strategy used in EFL classroom To be more specific, the results of this research should be seen as a useful tool for L2 teachers to reflect their use of politeness strategies in the classroom As a result, EFL teachers would be more aware of their use of politeness strategies in their classroom and there would be some modification in teachers’ language used in the classroom As a consequence, the teacher could improve teacher-student interaction in EFL classroom, and the teaching-learning process would be more efficient

Secondly, the researcher hopes this study would be a useful source of reference for other studies in linguistics and pragmatic fields, further, it would enrich the literature regarding politeness strategies used in EFL classroom

This study focuses on teacher’s politeness strategies in the EFL classroom, in which both the teacher and the students are Vietnamese with Vietnamese culture That is to say, both the teacher and the students are non- native speakers and they use English as a medium for the teaching-learning process as well as for their interaction in the classroom context It should be noted that Vietnamese used in the classroom is also studied as the translanguaging resources Besides, politeness can also be expressed non- verbally, however, only the linguistic politeness will be analyzed and discussed in this current study Moreover, L2 students’ perceptions of their teacher’s utterances during the teaching-learning process would also be the subject for discussion

Chapter 1 – Introduction – presents a general statement about the study and the objectives that the study would want to achieve

Chapter 2 – Literature Review – gives the background of the study, consisting of definitions and descriptions of key concepts and related studies, both inside and outside of Vietnam

Chapter 3 – Methodology – gives descriptions of the participants and the settings for the study as well as the procedure employed to carry out the research

Chapter 4 – Results – presents the findings together with in-depth analysis and discussion of the findings – gives answers to the two research questions proposed in the introduction chapter

Chapter 5 – Conclusion – summarizes the main issues discussed in the study, the limitations of the research and proposes some recommendations and suggestions for further studies

References and Appendices come at the end of the study

LITERATURE REVIEW

Overview of Politeness

The English lexeme 'polite' lies in the Latin past participle form politus, meaning 'polished' The same is true for the French term poli, which is the past participle of the verb polir, meaning to polish Thus, it is understood that “The etymological roots of the terms 'polite' and 'politeness' in English are (thus) to be found in notions of cleanliness, a smooth surface and polished brightness which can reflect the image of the beholder” (Watts, 2003, p33)

The concept Politeness has been studied since the 1960s from the perspectives of many scientific fields – psychology, philosophy, sociology, ethnomethodology, social anthropology and linguistics This thesis will be focused on the most prominent one, i.e the linguistic point of view Since politeness can be understood as an instrument, it is logical that the research of politeness is usually classified as a part of linguistic pragmatics, a discipline that studies language from the functional point of view and assesses the appropriateness of use of certain elements of speech in particular communication

The pragmatic turn in linguistics dates back to the second half of the 1960s Yule (1996, p4) follows Morris in describing pragmatics as “the study of the relationships between linguistic forms and the users of those forms.”

While syntax is the study of how linguistic forms are arranged in a sequence, and semantics examines the relationship between linguistic forms and entities of the world, pragmatics is concerned with the notion of implicature, i.e implied meaning as opposed to the mere lexical meaning expressed Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning, or contextual meaning, and dwells upon how more than what is said is expressed and the expression of relative distance in a natural language setting (Yule, 1996, p.3) A large body of linguistic research has moved from language disciplines, focusing on competence, to parole disciplines, emphasizing language performance The parole perspective brings context into linguistics, i.e the relationship between speaker and addressee, illocutionary effect, topic and motivation of communication, and due to this every text or discourse is considered a unique event of perception and creation.

Root of Linguistic Politeness

We should first mention the theories of the “fathers of pragmatics” in brief to see the framework of politeness concepts that will be analyzed later on in the text First and foremost, it is John Austin, the author of theory of speech acts and whose lecture series named How to Do Things with Words (1962) reveals that we not only say things, but we also do things when using language (John, 1962) A speech act is, therefore, an utterance, functioning as a unit of communication Theoretically, there are three components in a speech act: the Locutionary Act (producing the actual meaningful utterance), the Illocutionary Act (the intended significance and socially valid verbal actions, such as ordering, warning, undertaking etc.) and the Perlocutionary Act (the actual effect of the utterance, or what we achieve with an utterance, such as convincing, persuading, deterring, surprising, misleading) The Illocutionary Act determines a certain illocutionary force When the illocutionary force is

9 different from the Locutionary Act, this situation is called an indirect speech act A typical example of an indirect speech act is a request formulated as a question: Could you open the window?

Building upon Austin’s work, Searle (1965) argues that “A theory of language is a part of theory of action” This could be understood as, since language is intentional behavior, it should be treated like a form of action

Moreover, to understand language one must understand the speaker’s intention as when one speaks, one performs an act Searle further proposes that all acts fall into five main types: representatives, directives, commissives, expressives, and declarations

The aim of the speaker, therefore, is to make the addressee understand his/her intention In other words, to convey the illocutionary force, the speaker can use intonation, punctuation, and verb performatives (verbs, such as promise, invite, apologize, and forbid, that explicitly convey the kind of speech act being performed), or the illocutionary force can be assigned to the interpretation itself Sometimes the type of the Illocutionary Act comes from the context of a communication, for example I am here by car as a reply to I missed my bus is an offer Due to these hints, the act is called Illocutionary, because the word illocutionary derives from the word illoquor, meaning unexpressed (Grepl & Karlík, 1998, p 419)

Furthermore, Searle (1969) specifies the conditions that each Illocutionary Act must fulfill He divides these conditions into three types: preparatory conditions (e.g a preparatory condition for reprehension is the fact that the addressee has done something wrong), sincerity conditions (the subjective standpoint of a speaker, e.g a sincerity condition of a question is the speaker’s desire to learn something new), and essential conditions (the aim of the speaker, e.g the essential condition of an announcement is to inform the addressee about the content)

The basis of the majority of linguistic theories on politeness could be traced back to the Cooperative Principle of H.P Grice His theory can be succinctly illustrated by the following sentence, taken from his essay Logic and Conversation: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged (Grice, 1975, p45) Grice further suggests four conversational maxims under the Cooperative Principle which are prerequisites for a successful and effective communication (Grice, 1989, p28- 29):

The Cooperative Principle (abbreviated to CP)

QUANTITY: Give the right amount of information: i.e

1 Make your contribution as informative as required

2 Do not make your contribution more informative than is required

QUALITY: Try to make your contribution the one that is true: i.e

1 Do not say what you believe to be false

2 Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence

3 Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)

The floating of these maxims can lead to un-cohesive communication or misunderstanding Even though the CP is always valid, participants of a conversation often break its principles, for which they usually have a reason

When a speaker breaks one of the maxims, the addressee starts thinking of the reasons the speaker might have had S/he starts adding the missing pieces of a conversation that were not explicitly mentioned, but are still somehow present in the utterance, and the speaker wishes the addressee to understand them

These implicit parts of utterances are called conversational implicatures “The presence of a conversational implicature must be capable of being worked out”

(Grice 1970, p50) One of the reasons for breaking a maxim can also be politeness An example of this is when a wife tells her husband, “The Novák family are coming over for dinner tonight” and the husband replies, “It will be nice to see Jana” The husband’s reply floats the maxim of quantity, but is more polite than explicitly saying that he does not like Mr Novák Moreover, Grice himself maintains that some maxims are more important than others, and he also acknowledges that these maxims are often violated Nevertheless, they seem to form the basis of any rational conversation Grice also points out that his list of maxims is not final, and identifies other important maxims, e.g “Be polite”:

There are, of course, all sorts of other maxims (aesthetic, social, or moral in character) such as ‘Be polite’ that are normally observed by participants in talk exchanges and these may also generate nonconventional (i.e conversational) implicatures (Grice 1991,p.308)

These words have inspired many linguists who have elaborated on Grice’s suggestion for a certain politeness maxim Names connected with linguistic politeness are Robin Lakoff, Geoffrey Leech and Brown and Levinson and Watts There are other linguists who deal with politeness (e.g Fraser and Nolen, Eelen, Scollon and Scollon), but the theories of Lakoff, Leech, Brown and Levinson and Watts are generally considered the most influential ones

Accordingly, this thesis will predominantly draw on on the latter

The term ‘linguistic politeness’ refers to strategies that aim at conflict- free communication, especially Leech’s Politeness Principle, and also at the self-realization and the self-defense of a speaker in a conversation The theories of the above-mentioned linguists have shaped the perception of linguistic politeness, and they will provide a framework for the research in the practical part of this thesis

Robin Lakoff and Politeness

The idea that politeness can be studied and interpreted as adhering to certain pragmatic rules was first worded by Robin Lakoff in her essay The Logic of Politeness: or, Minding your p’s and q’s (1973, p.45) Here, Lakoff defines politeness as forms of behavior that have been “developed in societies in order to reduce friction in personal interaction.” According to her, pragmatic competence consists of a set of sub-maxims, namely:

1- Be clear and 2- Be polite

The continuity of Grice’s thought is clear, especially in the fact that Grice’s Cooperative Principle in a way overlaps with Lakoff’s first rule Again, there are many situations in which the requirement of the first maxim (be clear) is more important than the other one (be polite), and vice versa Lakoff (1973, p297-298) clarifies this relationship by asserting that,

Politeness usually supersedes It is considered more important in a conversation to avoid offense than to achieve clarity This makes sense, since in most informal conversations, actual communication of important ideas is secondary to merely reaffirming and strengthening a relationship

Lakoff (1973) characterizes politeness from the perspective of the speaker, identifying three sub-types

1 formal (or impersonal) politeness (Don't impose/remain aloof)

2 informal politeness – hesitancy (Give options)

3 intimate politeness – equality and camaraderie (make A feel good – be friendly/act as though you and the addressee were equal)

These strategies (distance, deference and camaraderie) are usually applied in different circumstances When the relationship between the speaker and addressee is not close, formal politeness should prevail, and the speaker must conform to social etiquette The speaker should be indirect, and in certain situations can be considered reserved

According to Lakoff (1973), informal politeness is typical of women A speaker using strategies of informal politeness can sound indecisive, because s/he leaves the decision to the addressee

In brief, Lakoff views politeness both as a way to avoid giving offense and as a lubricator in communication that should maintain harmonious relations between the speaker and the hearer This view, accordingly, would function as the basis for the researcher to analyze as well as compare different politeness models so that the most suitable one would be chosen.

Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies

One of the most influential, detailed and well-known models of linguistic politeness is that of Penelope Brown and Stephen C Levinson in 1987 It is said that “perhaps the most thorough treatment of the concept of politeness is that of Brown and Levinson” (Fasold, 2000, p.160) Their book, Politeness:

Some Universals in Language Usage, was first published in 1978; however, we usually cite the second edition from 1987, where the authors answer various objections to their theory Brown and Levinson were not only inspired by Grice’s CP and Austin’s and Searle’s theory of speech acts, but also by Erving Goffman’s conception of face (1967)

Goffman understands the construct of face in accordance with certain English folk terms, like losing face or saving face, and defines face as “an image of self - delineated in terms of approved social attributes- albeit an image that others may share” (Goffman, 1967, p.5)

Face is the public self-image of a person Thus, every participant of a conversation has a face, and everyone’s task in a conversation is to maintain and protect his or her face within the interlocutors However, face can be threatened in specific situations and such threats are called face-threatening acts (FTAs)

The concept of face was borrowed from Goffman by Brown and Levinson (1987), and used in their Model Person, who can be defined by the following three characteristics: this person speaks a natural language, is rational (and therefore capable of means-end reasoning) and has a face Consequently, this Model Person is used by Brown and Levinson to illustrate the connection between the use of language and politeness

In their theory, face is two dimensional – they work with the concepts of positive and negative face However, the terms positive and negative are not subject to evaluation; we cannot consider the positive face to be better than the negative one The terms are meant in a directional way (vectorial), i.e the positive face metaphorically aims outwards and the negative inwards, into the inner world of the speaker On the one hand, Brown and Levinson (1987, p.61) define the positive face as “the positive consistent self-image of ‘personality’

(crucially including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants.” On the other hand, the negative face is defined as our wish not to be imposed on by others and to be allowed to go about our business unimpeded with our rights to free and self-determined action intact To sum up, the negative face is the desire of every ‘competent adult member’ for his/her actions to be unimpeded by others The positive face is the wish of every member for his/her wants to be desirable to at least some others

It should be the interest of all participants in a conversation to enable each other to save their face, minimizing face-threatening acts As Watts describes it

(2003, p.86) politeness strategies will therefore be those which aim (a) at supporting or enhancing the addressee’s positive face (positive politeness) and (b) at avoiding transgression of the addressee’s freedom of action and freedom from imposition (negative face)

Positive politeness serves to make the hearer feel liked and approved of; whereas negative politeness serves to minimize the imposition on the hearer

Figure 2.1 Strategies for performing FTAs (Brown & Levinson, 1987)

Followings are more explanation of each politeness strategy according to Brown and Levinson’s theory

In the Bald-on record strategy, the speaker does nothing to minimize threats to the hearer’s face The reason for its usage is that whenever a speaker wants to do the FTA with maximum efficiency more than he or she wants to satisfy the hearer’s face, even to any degree, the Bald-on record strategy chosen according to Brown and Levinson (1987, 1895)

There are two kinds of bald-on record as follows

A Non-minimization of the face threat

Non-minimization of the face threat is the standard uses of Bald-on record usage where other demands override face concerns S and H both agree that the relevance of face demands may be suspended in the interest of urgency or efficiency This strategy is most utilized in situations where the speaker has a close relationship with the audience

B FTA- oriented bald-on record usage

The theory of Brown and Levinson (1987) explains the use of Bald-on record is actually face-oriented In other words, it is used where face involves

16 mutual orientation, so that each participant attempts to foresee what the other participant is attempting to foresee For example, in certain circumstances, it is reasonable for S to assume that H will be especially worried with H’s potential violation or S’s maintaining

Brown and Levinson (1987, p.70) define positive politeness as the strategy oriented by the speaker towards the positive face or the positive self- image of the hearer The speaker can satisfy the addressee’s positive face wants by emphasizing that speaker wants what the hearer’s wants Positive politeness techniques are usable not only for FTA redress, but as kind of social accelerator that indicates the speaker’s wants to come closer to hearer

Positive politeness strategy is classified into 15 sub-strategies as follows (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p103-129)

1) Strategy 1: Notice, attend to Hearer (his interest, wants, needs, goods)

The strategy suggests that S (speaker) should take notice as aspects of hearer’s condition of the listener (the changes can also note, common ownership, and everything that listeners want to be noticed and recognized by the speakers)

2) Strategy 2: Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with H)

This strategy is often done with exaggerated intonation, stress, and other aspects of prosodic, as well as intensifying modifiers

Another way for S to share his wants with the H is to intensify the interest of S’s own contributions to the conversation, by “making good story”

4) Strategy 4: use in-group identity markers (addressed forms, dialect, jargon or slang)

This strategy is done by using innumerable address forms to indicate that

S and H belong to some set of persons who share specific wants In conveying

17 of group member, the speaker can use terms such as mac, mate, buddy, pal, honey, dear, duckie, luv, babe, Mom, blondie, brother, sister, cutie, sweetheart, guys, fella, etc In Vietnamese, the terms could be các bạn, mình, các em, em yêu, cục cưng, etc

5) Strategy 5: seek agreement (safe topics, repetition)

Another way to save H’s positive face is to seek ways in which it is possible for S to agree with him Seek agreement may be stressed by raising weather topics and repeating what the preceding speaker has said in a conversation (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p112)

Critique of Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies

Though Brown and Levinson's theory is widely applicable, some weaknesses in their theory have been noted

Firstly, academia’s main critique of Brown and Levinson's theory is its claim of universality, or cross-cultural validity Firstly, many sociologists criticize that politeness theory is heavily based on Western cultures where individualism is highly valued compared to many non-Western cultures where group identity is valued over the individual One example of this is the Vietnamese culture in which the collectivism is normally of higher value than the individualism By way of illustration, the two key elements that underlie the notion of politeness and drive interactants’ behavior in the Vietnamese culture include lễ (‘rules of propriety’, ‘rites’, ‘morals’, ‘proper conducts’) and tình cảm (‘sentiments’) (Chew 2011) The former element involves (1) respectfulness or showing respect to people of higher power; and (2) propriety of showing respect of people of equal or lower power The latter element manifests through the speaker’s behavior of care or mutual understanding with a view to maintaining social harmony From these two elements, it could be concluded that, there is an emphasis on the conformity of individuals’ behavior to social expectations In other words, face must be endorsed by the community; therefore, politeness is the conformity to these expected norms rather than attending to individual face wants, which is not sufficiently defined in Brown and Levinson’s theory

Secondly, that Brown and Levinson’s theory focuses on the “dualism” concept of face has been challenged by some scholars According to Brown and Levinson (1987), there exists positive face or external aspect of face, which involves a desire for connection with others; and negative face or internal aspect of face, which needs include autonomy and independence The problem of such definition is that the notion of ‘Positive-Negative’ or ‘External- Internal’ seems semantically opposite (Bousfield, 2008) Thus, the aspects of face that Brown and Levinson’s are open to be viewed as polar or dichotomous opposite Positive and negative face oriented utterances cannot co-occur within

26 a single utterances, in other words However, when it comes to interactions in real life, the negative and positive face are not that ‘mutually exclusive’ How the speaker and the hearer interact and their choice or politeness are clearly defined by the speech situation and there is no such clear-cut division of either only positive or only negative strategy The speaker and the hearer, in order to communicate effectively and successfully, are likely to swiftly switch from the positive to the negative strategy, based on the context.

Teacher’s language in EFL classroom

When it comes to the importance of teacher’s language in EFL classroom, since 1970s, some scholars have been conducting the studies of teachers’ language According to Rod Ellis (1985), teachers’ language can be termed as teachers’ talk, teachers’ speech, or teachers’ utterance, which is all about the language use in class Flanders (1970) defines teaching activity as

“acts by the teacher which occur in the context of classroom interaction”

Hakansson (1986) and Ellis (1990) also claim the importance role of teachers’ language in managing classroom interaction Nunan (1991) illustrates the importance of teachers’ language, both for the management of classroom and in the process of acquisition; for classroom management teachers’ language may succeed or fail to carry out the teaching activities, while during the course of acquisition teachers’ language is the major medium for understanding knowledge input that the learners are able to receive

Besides, following Brown and Levinson, three factors are calculated to determine the weight of the FTAs (i.e the degree of risk to students’ face) in the classroom context and are expected to influence its redress (i.e., the execution of politeness strategies)

Accordingly, in Brown and Levinson’s theory, the strength or weightiness of a particular FTA (e.g a request, an invitation, or a refusal) is the sum of these factors (1987, p76-80):

1) social distance (D) between speaker and hearer, refers to the degree of familiarity and solidarity they share;

2) relative power (P) of hearer over speaker in respect to hearer means the degree to which the speaker can impose his/her will on speaker; and

3) absolute rating (Rx) of imposition in the culture, in terms of the expenditure of goods or services by hearer, the right of speaker to perform the act, and the degree to which the hearer welcomes the imposition

In EFL classroom teaching, English is not only the target language for students to learn, but also a medium for teachers to teach English EFL teachers are the models for the students to imitate while their language is the most important source for students to gain the knowledge of the language Teachers’ language is a language applied in a special language situation, while politeness is regarded as a most favorable strategy in interpersonal relationship In other words, EFL classroom context functions as a community in which English is used as the main medium of exchanging knowledge and ideas, further, the participants in such context are the teacher and his/her students As such, politeness, especially politeness strategies realized linguistically through utterances in English, is one of the core elements helping promote teacher- student relationship The teacher, thus, should take into consideration ‘how to speak’ and ‘what to speak’ in the classroom

Combining Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategy with teachers’ language use, the researcher aims at what politeness strategies are applied in EFL classroom and how this combination facilitates teaching and learning activities and benefits both teachers and students.

Concept of perception

There are many definitions and theories of perceptions Mussen (1973) define ‘perception’ as the process of attaining awareness and acquiring

28 information through the sensory receptors (e.g eyes, ears, nose, and skin), which involves human’s five senses This is also the process of selection, organization, and interpretation of stimuli by someone to be a coherent and meaningful picture of the world (Kumar, 2014) In other words, by passing perceptual process, people can interpret their idea meaningfully based on what they see, hear, taste, smell, and touch Harnard (2006) goes one step further as the author proposes two aspects of perception that are cognitive and psychology The former aspect emphasizes on understanding and making sense of things, which includes reasoning, arguments and logic This aspect can be examined by seeing the results of how emotion, experience, and intelligence contribute to the understanding and responses Meanwhile, the latter one only focuses on the relation of experience that influences stimulation, and then the result of it affects the perception itself When it comes to factors influencing a person’s perception, Hadini (2014) claims that there are two types of factors: internal and external For internal factor, the perception of an individual will influenced by psychological needs, personal background, experience, personality, attitudes and personal believe, and self acceptance On the other hand, for the external factor it influenced by outside factors such as stimulus, environment, culture and believe

In this current study, L2 students played the role of the perceivers, while the perceived subject was the teacher’s utterances Regarding the former, various researchers have identified certain characteristics of the perceiver which can modify perception According to Randolph and Blackburn (1989, p

89), there are three factors contributing to the differences in perception, namely, which the individual has learnt, the motivation and the personality of the perceiver Robbins (1991) identifies five factors influencing on one’s perception, which are the perceiver’s interest, motives, experience and

29 expectation Johnson (1994), meanwhile, is on par with Forgus and Melamed’s

(1976) categorization According to these authors, perception is influenced by

(1) social experience and cultural background, (2) the perceiver’s value and personality, and (3) the dynamics person perception Besides the perceiver, the situational context, in which the object is perceived, is also a decisive factor affecting the perception process

As such, studying student’s perception of the teacher’s language use in the classroom means examining how effective and appropriate the teacher’s utterances are made sense of from the students’ perspective, values, cultural background and motivation to learn English.

Related studies on Teacher’s politeness strategies in EFL classroom

According to Nunan (1991), teachers’ language is of crucial importance, not only for the organization of the classroom, but also for the process of acquisition That is to say, teacher’s utterances in L2 classroom have a certain impact on the teaching and learning process, as well as the students’ outcome

Research on teacher’s language in L2 classroom, accordingly, has a long tradition There are growing appeals for teacher’s politeness strategies and recent studies into teacher’s politeness strategies have been conducted in different context and with a wide range of participants, from high school teachers to college ones

Jiang (2010) investigated teacher’s linguistic politeness in EFL classroom His study had a case study design whose participants were one Chinese teacher and the students In Jiang’s study, the teacher’s politeness strategies were seen in respect to the process of teaching and learning activities such as instruction, motivating the class, evaluating the students and classroom management Follows is the classification of teacher’s politeness strategies in the classroom:

1) Giving instructions, e.g “Let’s begin our class”, “Shall we move to the topic of the text?”, or “This question is kind of difficult Please think carefully.”

2) Motivating, e.g “Why don’t you …” “Maybe you can correct this sentence”, or

“You can give it a try”

3) Evaluating/Giving feedback, e.g “Excellent”, “Good job”, or “Well done, Ms X”

4) Managing classroom, e.g “Would you please stop talking?”, “Please come here” or “Can you sit here?”

Moreover, from classroom observation, interview with participants and data analysis, the author was able to draw a conclusion that politeness strategy existed in ELF classroom Specifically, positive and negative politeness strategies were recognized mostly through teacher’s activities of motivating and evaluating the students This means the teacher took in his consideration the students’ desire to be liked or approved As a result, these strategies significantly promoted teacher-students relationship, further, enhanced teaching and benefited student’s learning process Meanwhile, bald-on record strategies were seen through the speech act of classroom management, which indicates a close relationship between the teacher and his students

In his case study analysis, Zaenul (2014) claimed that teacher and students utilized all the politeness strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson

(1987) during their learning process in EFL context The participants on his research were one teacher and twenty-eight students at grade 11 His research method took the form of observation in ‘natural setting’, which aimed at not interfering the teaching-learning process The result from Zaenul’s study revealed that among the four types of politeness strategy, positive politeness strategy was often utilized the most in L2 classroom He further asserted that teachers attempt to be fun and friendly to the students It was merely to minimize the threat (FTA) or imposition In other words, that the teacher

31 attempted to creates a close relationship with the students in the classroom would automatically influence the studens’ learning process In this case, the students not only enjoyed the class but also respected their teacher during the teaching and learning process However, since the author’s interpretation solely based on his observation, the conclusion was probably subjective and might fail to capture the nature of the teacher-student interaction The in-class occurrences ought to be analyzed through the lenses of the teacher and the students, in other words

A similar pattern of result was obtained by Mahmud (2017) The author conducted a descriptive qualitative study, whose participants were a secondary teacher and her students in English class The results collected through audio recording, observation checklist and interview enabled the author to conclude that teachers use positive politeness strategy the most dominantly in their EFL classroom, further, this strategy helped create a good communication between the teachers and their student In this study, there was no evidence of off-record strategy used in the class; however, there was no conclusion drawn from such phenomenon

In line with previous studies, Yoga and her co-authors (2018) also conducted a study investigating on the implication of politeness strategies in teaching-learning process between one high school teacher and her grade-10 students By means of observation and interview, the author got more insights on the stated iressue Specifically, the research result showed the significant influence of teacher’s politeness strategy on the following aspects in EFL classroom: efficiency in the process of learning and teaching, respect communication between teacher and students, less imposition and directness in teaching-learning process, and more ‘togetherness’ between teacher and students

In brief, a growing body of literature has examined teacher’s politeness strategies in EFL classroom as well as the correlation between such strategies and teacher-student interaction during the teaching-learning process

Nevertheless, little study to date has examined the use of teacher’s politeness strategies in EFL classroom at university level in the context of Vietnam Besides, much of the research merely focuses on teachers’ politeness recognized through teachers’ utterances without studying students’ perception towards these utterances Students’ perception on the appropriateness and effectiveness of teacher’s utterances in EFL classroom is still under-researched, in other words Therefore, a study to investigate Vietnamese college teacher’s politeness strategy and students’ perception on the teacher’s utterances in EFL classroom would be a major contribution to the research field of L2 teacher language

This chapter presented the theoretical issues relevant to the study including the theory of linguistic politeness in general and Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness strategy in particular The framework for the study as well as a critical appraisal of the previous studies related to the current research were also presented at the end of the chapter

METHODOLGY

Research design

This study has a qualitative design, with an interpretive paradigm

According to Gay, Mills and Airasian (2006, p 399) this research design requires the process of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting of comprehensive narrative and visual data, so that the author could gain more “insights into a particular phenomenon of interest”, without destroying complexity and context Moreover, qualitative research enabled the researcher to flexibly facilitate explorations of a phenomenon within its context using a variety of data sources Thus, this ensures that the issue is not explored through one lens, but rather a variety of lenses which allow for multiple facets of the ‘occurrence’ to be revealed and understood As such, this study was intended to collect, analyze and interpret several data related to one particular phenomenon in EFL classroom, which is teacher’s politeness strategies in teacher-student interaction It is noteworthy that interpretation was based on the researcher’s values, experiences and meanings

Data were collected via non-participatory observation and semi- structured interviews This triangulation strategies enabled the researcher yield richer data so that the researcher could investigate the (1) teacher’s politeness strategies employed in the EFL classroom, (2) how the strategies are recognized linguistically through her utterances; and (3) the students’ perceptions on the appropriateness and effectiveness of teacher’s utterances

Participants

With the regard to teacher participant, since the objective of the study is to get more insights into teachers’ use of politeness in the English classroom, the main focus was on the choice of eligible teacher The teacher participant was a Vietnamese female teacher with high English proficiency (IELTS band 8.5, corresponding to level C2 in the CEFR) She was 24 and was newly recruited into the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS in July 2018

In terms of student participant, there were 18 Vietnamese students, who were mostly at upper-intermediate level (B2+ level in the CEFR) and their major was English The English class was coded 4A – English for Social purposes, which lasted for 15 weeks, and the course book was Cambridge Face2face Advanced

It is also noteworthy that each participant in this research was assigned a pseudonym, which was used whenever he or she is cited.

Data collection instruments

With a view to examining the types of politeness strategies employed by the teacher in the EFL classroom, and how these strategies are realized through the teacher’s utterances, I chose observation to be the main instrument to collect the data Moreover, I would like to have a closer look on the teacher’s utterances in in-class activities, namely, giving instructions, motivating the class, evaluating the students and managing the classroom According to Gay and Mills (2012, p381-382), observation is watching the participants to understand the natural environment as lived by them, without altering or manipulating As such, in observational study, the current status of phenomena is determined not by asking but by observing, so that the researcher could

35 obtain much more objective information that can used to triangulate the interview reports

In this research, the data collection technique was non-participatory observation The data were collected through video recording Specifically, the observation was done six times, in six 50-minute lessons in one EFL classroom at college level The researcher asked for the teacher’ permission and came to the classrooms In order not to interfere in the teaching-learning process, the researcher took a seat at the back to record teacher’s utterances The researcher also prepared field-notes while observing

The observation timeline is listed in table 3.1:

After recording the six lessons described above, I started to transcribe

Being primarily interested in teachers’ use of politeness, solely the teacher’s utterances and the teacher-students interaction were transcribed and analyzed

Student–student interactions, accordingly, were omitted Besides, utterances that were considered irrelevant for the purposes of the current research, such as simultaneous and overlapping utterances, were not included in the transcription In addition, at places where an end of a sentence would normally occur, punctuation was typed to mark the semantic end I made an attempt to convert the spoken language into its written counterpart as faithfully as possible for the reader’s comfort

After being transcribed, the data were coded as follows, to ensure a more comprehensive and systematic analysis

The coding scheme for collected data

The type of politeness strategies

Table 3.2 Coding scheme for the types of politeness strategies

Coded letter BOR PP NP OR

Table 3.3 Coding scheme for the types of sub-politeness strategies

Bald-on record strategy cases of non-minimization of the threat minth cases of FTA- oriented Bald-on record usage orbor

Notice or attend to hearer nath

Intensify interest to hearer iith Use in-group identity markers uigm

Presuppose/ raise/assert common ground ascg Assert S’s knowledge of H’s wants and willingness ask

Include both S and H in the activity shact

Give or ask reason gar

Assume or assert reciprocity asrec

Impersonalize Speaker and Hearer imper State the FTA as general rule gen

Go on record as incurring debt or as not indebting H indebt

Be incomplete or use ellipsis inelp For example, if the datum is coded as S1/PP/sagr, this means in the first observation, teacher employed one type of Positive politeness strategies, namely “Seeking agreement”

Moreover, in order to yield a balanced picture of teacher’s politeness strategies in the classroom, the researcher invited the teacher to take part in the interview session Semi-structured interview, with its non-imposing nature and

“empathetic exploration” (Mearns & Thorne, 199), was employed to get more insights on the reasons that certain politeness strategies were employed; further, the purpose of uttering certain phrases, especially those could not be classified into any politeness strategy

In order to seek the answer for the third research question concerning the students’ perceptions of their teacher’s utterances in EFL classroom, semi- structured was employed By applying purposeful sampling, the researcher chose five students among the whole class to be the interviewees for this study

The first reason for choosing these students was due to their frequent attendance In other words, those students were not absent from any of the observed lessons As such, their report would be valid to the study Moreover, those students were chosen because, in the observed videos, they contributed to the lesson differently Two of the, whose names were coded as Diana and Hana, had the most active performance in the class, which means they often voiced their opinions The other two students, whose pseudo-names are Tina and Gina, sometimes raised their voice; however, they were more willing to speak when being invited by the teacher The last student, whose name was coded as Diane, was the least active among the five students, even when being called upon by the teacher, she seemed hesitate to speak With such variety in the participants’ involvement in the classroom, the data collected were hoped to sufficiently depict the phenomenon

The researcher made an appointment with these participants and carried out the interviews The interview took the form of semi-structured interview, with which the researcher could tailor questions to the participants In so doing, the researcher could seek the answer for the question of how the students perceive their teacher’s utterances, i.e whether the teacher’s utterances, to the students’ perceptions, were appropriate and effective

Data from the interview were then transcribed and analyzed together with the one from observation.

Data analysis

The framework for data analysis was based on Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies Data from recorded video were coded and then analyzed as follows

Table 3.4 Brown and Levinson’s Politeness strategies summary chart

Bald on-record Positive politeness

Explanation Does nothing to reduce the threat to the hearer's face and is therefore used in close relationships or when information needs to be shared quickly

Is used as a way to make the hearer feel a sense of closeness and belonging

Is used as a way to interact with the hearer in a non- imposing way

Is used to completely remove the speaker from any potential to impose on the hearer and only alludes to the speaker's idea or specific request

 Little or no desire to maintain someone's face

 Doing the face- threatening act is in the interest of the hearer

 Situations where the threat is

 Attend to the hearer's interests, needs, wants

 Use solidarity in- group identity markers

 Include both speaker (S) and hearer (H) in activity

 Exaggerate interest in H and his interests

 Use obviating structures, like nominalizations, passives, or statements of general rules

 Don't forget to clean the blinds!

 Leave it, I'll clean it up later

 You look sad Can I do anything?

 Heh, mate, can you lend me a dollar?

 I'll just come along, if you don't mind

 If we help each other, I guess, we'll both sink or swim in this course

 If you wash the dishes, I'll vacuum the floor

 That's a nice haircut you got; where did you get it?

 Yes, it's rather long; not short certainly

 Would you know where Oxford Street is?

 Perhaps, he might have taken it, maybe

 Could you please pass the rice?

 You couldn't find your way to lending me a thousand dollars, could you?

 So I suppose some help is out of the question, then?

 It's not too much out of your way, just a couple of blocks

 I hope offense will not be taken

 Spitting will not be tolerated

 I'm sorry; it's a lot to ask, but can you lend me a thousand dollars?

 Wow, it's getting cold in here

 We regret to inform you

According to Miles and Huberman (1994, cited in Eagle, 1999), “data reduction refers to the process of selecting, focusing, simplifying, abstracting, and transforming the data that appear in written-up field notes or transcriptions” They further point out that the data reduction or data condensation process is varied in several ways, such as through selection, summary or paraphrase and being subsume in larger pattern After collecting teacher’s utterances, the researcher continued transcribing and selecting relevant utterances to the research purpose In so doing, there would be no presence of ‘unimportant’ utterances in the data

The next point of data analysis is data display After having collected and reduced the data, the researcher displayed the amassed data in organized and compressed information that will leads to conclusion The forms of qualitative data display include types of matrices, graphs, charts, or networks

To be more specific, the researcher classified the data of the English teachers’ utterances and displayed them in Italic letters

In order to get analyze the data systematically as well as to fully address the research questions, a set of units of data analysis is provided as follows

Table 3.5 Unit of data analysis

Research question Collected data Unit(s) of analysis

1 What politeness strategies are used by the teacher?

2 What is the students’ perceptions of the effectiveness and appropriateness of their teacher’s utterances?

Self-reports from interview session

After having the data displayed in a form of table, the researcher would able to interpret it and reach conclusions and verifications Derived from the data displayed in tables, the next step conducted by the researcher is describing and interpreting the data so that the conclusions and verifications of the use of politeness strategies by the novice teacher can be drawn

In short, the steps in analyzing the data are: (1) the researcher collected the data through observation, and interview Then, there came a process of selecting, identifying, and focusing on the data by referring to formulation of the research problem; (2) after selecting the data, the researcher displayed those data into table form; and (3) conclusion were to be drawn based on tables and transcriptions of the participants

In the following section, data collected by the video recordings will be analyzed from different perspectives of Brown and Levinson’s model of politeness To be specific, the analysis adopts the viewpoint of Brown and Levinson’s positive and negative politeness for the following reasons:

(1) it is the most influential and comprehensive model of politeness; and

(2) it is of practical applicability for the sake of the thesis

Besides, in order to minimize the weaknesses of Brown and Levinson’s theory (due to the aforementioned criticism), the researcher decided to employ the framework in solely classifying the teacher’s types of politeness strategies

This chapter elaborated on the participants and setting, justifying the research instruments as well as describing in details the procedures of collecting and analyzing data

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Findings

4.1.1 Research questions 1: Teacher’s politeness strategy in the EFL classroom

Figure 4.1 Number of teacher’s politeness strategies used in the classroom

As can be seen from the chart, throughout the six observed lessons, bald- on record strategy and positive politeness strategy were commonly used in the classroom There is also an increase in the use of such strategies, which indicates that the relationship between the teacher and her students become closer Following are the detailed findings of each type of politeness strategy

The teacher’s authoritative role in the class was reflected when she gave commands and instructions, and made requests Through the choice of direct

1st obervation 2nd observation 3rd observation 4th observation 5th observation 6th observation

Positive politeness Negative Politeness Bald-on record

45 strategies for giving instruction, the teacher imposed and created pressure on the students Below are examples of bald-on record strategy recognized linguistically through the teacher’s utterances:

(1) When the teacher asked her students to do specific tasks T/S2/BO: How do you spell it for me?

T/S2/BO: What does it mean?

In the examples above, the teacher utilized Wh-questions functioning as a directive speech act to require the students to spell and give definition of the words

T/S2/Bor: I’ll call a person to report

In this example, the teacher used the modal verb “will” which indicates she committed herself to the future action that she’d call one student to report

As such, this is a directive speech act However, there is an implicit meaning needs explaining is this case The word “will” was used to express the teacher’s want for her student to (1) work in groups actively and then (2) get prepared to report in front of the class Thus, the sentence could also be classified as a directive speech act

In short, through one utterance, the teacher explicitly committed herself to an action and, simultaneously, implicitly required her students to do the task.

T/S2/Bor: Ann, help me out?

The teacher called the students by suing her first name, then she made an imperative utterances to ask for the student’s help The word “help”, in this context, means the teacher wanted her student to answer or to solve the question This is another example of Directive speech act

(2) Bald-on record strategy was also found through these following utterances:

T/S2/Bor: Tell me which place or trip do you prefer?

T/S5/Bor: Move yourself closer to your group member

T/S5/Bor: Listen to me everyone T/S5/Bor: Remember you’re allowed to use any T/S5/Bor: Do you have 100% certain about the answer?

All of the examples above were in the form of Imperative sentence functioning as direct speech acts (i.e Directives)

Or when the teacher checked her students’ work in session 5 T/S5/Bor: Ok number 4, True or False? How to correct that one?

T/S5/Bor: Number 5? False? So how to correct that one?

T/S5/Bor: Number 6? False? How to correct it?

T/S5/Bor: Number 7, True or False? True?

From the example above, it can be seen that when checking exercise, the teacher often used interrogative structures, specifically, in an ellipsis form (instead of saying “Is number 4 True or False?”) Moreover, they all had the form of directive speech act It should be noted that the same pattern of structure was used in other observed lessons

In can be concluded that, the teacher had the tendency to employ bald- on record strategy when checking the student’s work, giving instructions and requesting students This strategy was mostly realized through the teacher’s directive speech acts; and, through the use of Imperative, Interrogative and Wh- question structures

In terms of power, the classroom context with its asymmetrical power relationship, the teacher was considered to be in the position of institutional power and it could be argued that this gets partly expressed through the use of direct strategies The expression like “Listen to me” indicated that the teacher did not try to minimize the threat to the students’ face These strategies were common and acceptable in classroom interaction as they felt that they had a

47 close relationship Coincidently, such utterances were found more in the 5 th and the 6 th observations, which were done in week 12 and week 14 respectively

Positive politeness strategies appeal to the hearer’s desire to be liked and approved of “Positive politeness utterances are used as a kind of metaphorical extension of intimacy, to imply common ground or sharing of wants, including goals and values.” (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p103) In other words, positive politeness strategies are used to soften the FTAs The speaker, therefore, often goes on record with redressive action Different types of positive politeness strategy will be listed as follows

 Expressing an Interest in and Noticing Hearer a) Greetings Expressing an interest and noticing the hearer are of the major means of expressing positive politeness “In general, this output suggests that S should take notice of aspects of H’s condition.” (Brown & Levinson 1987, p 103)

This can be done in a lesson by greeting As observed, the lessons started with teachers saying “Hi guys” It can be seen that, the teacher chose to use an informal word “guys” to greet her students Besides, this expressive speech act not only created a rather friendly atmosphere to students but also helped draw students’ attention and wake them up b) Making small talks Another way to claim common ground between the speaker and the hearer and to avoid abruptness is by making small talk In so doing, the speaker enhances the hearer’s positive face (Brown & Levinson, 1978) In the classroom environment, small talk can sometimes appear in the initial part of a lesson This strategy is realized through:

T/S5/PP/iith: And now, do you love watching movie?

Ss: (saying together) yess I love watching movie

T/S5/iith: (pointing at the screen) Do you know this film?

Ss: Star Star trek T/S6/iith: Have you watched Guardian of the Galaxy?

T/S5/iith: […] How many of you have watched this movie?

Ss: (raising hands) T/S5/iith: And what is the main content of this movie?

Ss: (sharing the content of Star trek enthusiastically)

T/S5/iith: […] In fact, it talks about the space of sky and stars, right?

In terms of speech act, these utterances are in the form of question to activate student’s knowledge of the about-to-be-learnt topic

Moreover, as observed, the teacher used small talks with both related- and non-related content to the lesson To be specific, with the regard to the former one, the teacher aim was, apparently, to pique her students’ interest as well as to get them think about the topic In other words, by initiating the lesson with a small talk that is content-related, the teacher could activate her students’ schema Students’ existing knowledge and experience, accordingly, can then be used to personalize the lesson Regarding the latter one, small talks with non-related content, this form of small talks was only used when there was a student coming late (Session 2) or existing some technical problems

More interestingly, regarding non-related content, code-switched utterances occur occasionally when the teacher told her student a story As

49 observed, the students often listened to their teacher’s stories attentively, even though not all of the stories shared the same topics with those of the lessons

Then, they seemed to be more involved in the lessons The students’ willingness to speak more and quickly respond were the indicators for their involvement From this phenomenon, it could be concluded that teacher’s using Vietnamese in EFL class is not considered inappropriate On the contrary, using mother tongue in L2 classroom, at least in this case, could help establish better teacher-students interaction, i.e lesson the distance between the teacher and her students When being interviewed, the teacher did confirm this She even stated that:

When I see my students started to lose their attentions, I often switch to Vietnamese You know, just like a way to wake them up and help them stay more focused Better still, when using Vietnamese in my class, I feel closer to my students” (Interview with Teacher)

Furthermore, when being asked how the teacher could feel she was being closer to her students, she said that her students (after being told a story in Vietnamese, or having a small talk with her teacher in Vietnamese) responded to her questions more quickly and raise their opinions more This gave the teacher a good sense of satisfaction

4.1.1.1.1 Using ‘In-group identity marker’

‘In-group’ language is about how the speaker involves himself with the hearer and communicates that Speaker and Hearer are members of the same group This is achieved by means of ‘in-group’ address terms, use of slang or jargon terms, expressions which make the addressee more active in the conversation, ellipsis, inclusive ‘we’, para-linguistics and kinesics

‘In-group’ address terms and slang language were not expressed frequently in the analyzed lessons As observed, the teacher often use “we” at

50 the beginning of the lesson with the view to introducing the to-be-learnt content

T/S1/NP/uigm: Today we’re learning […]

T/S5/PP/iith: [After checking homework] And now, do you love watching?

T/S5/PP/uigm: Today, we’re going to listen to people talking about the most inspiring movie

T/S2/PP/uigm: So today we’re going to listen to… and you have to practice to

These sentences had the form of a declarative speech act, which allowed the teacher to lead her students into the lesson content

Furthermore, this strategy could be recognized through the use of “guys” as in the following directive speech acts when the teacher asked ‘the whole class’ to give their answers

T/S2/PP/uigm: Guys, I didn’t hear […] in the recording Why do you think the speaker…?

T/S5/PP/uigm: so now guys, do you have to read the text to talk about these advantages and disadvantages

Employing this positive politeness strategy, the teacher neither positioned herself as the more powerful, nor did she keep a distance from her students Also, the strategy was to reduce the threat of face (of dignity) of students This conclusion is well confirmed through the teacher’s answer in the interview session Specifically, the teacher stated that by using “guys”, she could reduce the high level of formality in the classroom, thus, could create a less nerve-wrecking learning atmosphere for her students Furthermore, her students could feel more comfortable and appreciated, so they were more willing to voice their opinions in class

Discussion

The analysis reveals that bald-on record strategy and positive politeness were generated more than the negative one by the teacher

Regarding bald-on record strategy, according to Brown and Levinson

(1987), this strategy occurred in the context in which speaker and hearer have a rather close relationship Basing on this theory, one explanation for such

68 occurrence is that the teacher was young (only four years older than the students), hence, she had a quite harmonious relationship with students

Furthermore, the use of bald-on record strategy witnessed an upward trend, especially in week 12 and week 14 (the 5th and 6th observations respectively)

Specifically, the last two could capture the closer relationship between the students and her teacher, which is possibly responsible for the highest frequency of direct utterances used in the classroom This is also confirmed by her students during their interview session Such phenomenon is also in line with the result in Jiang’s research as he stated that bald-on record strategy was used more frequently than he thought; and the reason for this ‘occurrence’ is the teacher’s young age and her close relationship with students (Jiang, 2010)

A similar conclusion was reached by Senowarsito (2003) In that study, it was stated that FTAs were frequently used by the teacher in the classroom where the teacher and students established a close relationship In such context, FTAs would make the hearers or the student ‘lose face’ the least

What the researcher found most interesting is that right at the first observation (the second week of the semester), teacher’s relationship with her students was just newly established, bald-on record strategy was employed quite frequently by the teacher Though not having had a close relationship with the students, the teacher often employed FTAs, which could threaten her students’ face Notwithstanding the teacher’s direct and face-threatening utterances, the student still found their teacher’s utterances appropriate (Interview with students) and complied with the instructions The first explanation for this is the teacher wanted her instructions to be as clear as possible for her student’s understanding The second explanation is that the teacher, culturally speaking, still played an authoritative role in the classroom, albeit a harmonious relationship with her students She was also considered the

69 most knowledgeable in the classroom In such case, respect from the students was given to her, accordingly

The findings also reveal that positive politeness strategy made up for a large proportion of teacher’s politeness strategy in the classroom To be more specific, this type of strategy was mostly realized through the teacher’s expressive speech acts when giving compliments, and informal lexical item to address the students The teacher often called her students “guys” instead of

“class” and she often uttered “Let’s” when leading students to a new activity

This ‘using in-group identity makers’ is believed to not only reduce the threat of face (of dignity) of students but also help lessen the distance between the teacher and her students (Brown & Levinson, 1987) Better still, during the teaching-learning process, teacher’s utterances to compliment her students accounted for a large proportion in the category of positive politeness strategy

Through face-saving utterances such as “Good”, “Excellent”, “Okay” the teacher showed her awareness and consideration towards students’ contributing ideas in the classroom She cared about her students and their learning process a lot, in other words It is explained as the teacher’s ultimate goal in every lesson is to encourage her students to voice their opinions as much as possible (Interview with Teacher), and these utterances is one of the means for her achieving such goal The class atmosphere, accordingly, is often supporting and motivating to the students Feeling more valued in the classroom, the students then were more willing to raise their voice in English A similar pattern of results was obtained in the studies conducted by Peng et al (2014), Augustina and Cahyono (2016), and Setia et al (2018) The authors all claimed that positive politeness strategy played a crucial role in motivating students to participate in the teaching-learning process In general, through the class observation, the researcher could see that the teacher was quite aware of the

70 students’ face wants She took the active attitude towards her teaching and her students’ learning by trying to find appropriate words to show respect to her students and save her student’s face

Negative politeness was realized through the use of “please” and modals such as “could” or “should” in the teacher’s utterances Although only accounting for the small number among the politeness strategies employed by the teacher, such strategy, together with its positive counterpart, indicates that the teacher, when activating the students, often took into the account the student’s desire to be approved and need to be unimpeded This is consistent with what has been found in Peng et al (2014)’s research as the author asserted by adding model verbs in the sentence, teachers could make the question- answer atmosphere less stressful, further, students would more freedom of choice However, in this current study, the researcher was able to generate a more detailed explanation for this ‘occurrence’ During the interview with the teacher, she justified her using modals when requesting in English is due to her habit and her sense of being polite (Interview with Teacher) To the student’s perception, once they were instructed with the polite utterances accompanied by teacher’s considerate manner, they would get involved more in the in-class activities They considered that was the act to reciprocally provide the motivation for the teacher Such occurrence could examined through Vietnamese collective culture Pham (2008), in her study of Vietnamese politeness, asserted one of the key elements that underlie the notion of politeness and drive interactants’ behavior in the Vietnamese culture is

‘sentiments’ or ‘tình cảm’ This involves behaviors as ‘care’, ‘intimacy’,

‘bond’, and ‘mutual help’ (Tran, 1995, 2001, as cited in Ho & Nguyen, 2015), serving to maintain social harmony (Chew, 2011) That students took part in the lesson with a view to motivating their teacher was the perfect embodiment

71 for this “mutual help” notion Pham (2008) further claimed that the second key element in Vietnamese notion of politeness is lễ (which can be roughly translated as ‘rules of propriety’, ‘rites’, ‘morals’, ‘proper conducts’), involving

‘respectfulness’ or showing respect to people of higher power, i.e students have to respect their teacher Not surprisingly, with such ideology embedded in their mind, the students would respect their teacher, regardless how young she was and how close their relationship was This also helps explain the

‘occurrence’ at which the teacher, though was reported to be friendly and approachable, is still obeyed by all students Apparently, applying Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory to analyze this case would be of insufficiency

There is no evidence of off-record strategy employed in the classroom since the teacher wanted to ensure the complete clarity in her instructions In other words, little metaphors or hints were used by the teacher to avoid her being misunderstood

Moreover, in respect to the occurrence of translanguaging in the classroom, both the teacher and her students found it appropriate and beneficial to the teacher-student relationship, i.e the teacher did not position herself more authoritative in such case This finding helps confirm Garcia’s (2009) argument as making use of translanguaging in the classroom does not require the teacher to be bilingual; however, “it does require the teacher to be a co-learner.” This also helped the teacher achieved her goal of supporting the learning, leveraging the students' existing resources and more importantly, making her students be more willing to speak

Lastly, as mentioned in the findings, there were many times the teacher use “Sorry”, instead of “Could you speak louder please” as a directive speech act requesting for the students to speak up their voice The teacher’s explanation for her choice of utterances is she did not want to interrupt her

72 students’ thinking or their process of learning Such choice reflects one of the

CONCLUSION

Summary of the findings

The study delved into teacher’s politeness strategies recognized linguistically through teacher’s utterances in teacher-student interaction and student’s perception towards such utterances The previous chapters have presented the introduction, the literature review, the methodology as well as the findings of the research

Through the in-depth analysis, significant findings for the research questions are summarized as follows

First and foremost, the findings for the first question are generally consistent with research showing that teacher employed a certain number of politeness strategies in the EFL classroom Specifically, this study reveals that the Vietnamese teacher utilized bald-on record, positive and negative politeness strategies in her English class Among the three strategies, bald-on record and positive politeness strategy were most frequently used Specifically, bald-on record strategy was realized mostly through imperative sentences functioning as direct requests and commands The positive politeness strategy was performed mainly by the use of some lexical items such as “guys”, “good”,

“excellent” as well as exclamatory expressions as the expressive speech acts

This strategy aimed at reducing the threat, showing respect and establishing a close relationship, and friendly and enthusiastic facial expressions In other words, to reduce power, the teacher tried to give weight to the students'

74 participation by giving indirect speech acts and solidarity makers (e.g “You know”) to soften the illocutionary force of their speech acts As such, the teacher’s utterances made her students feel good about themselves Concerning the negative politeness strategies, they were manifested by the lexical items like “could”, “should” or “please" together with indirect speech acts Negative politeness strategies were applied in making imperative expressions, softening the direct expressions with lessening the imposition and the power of the message, using the affirmative form to satisfy a request, and creating an impression of options These strategies include hedging, being conventionally indirect and giving deference The classroom atmosphere was generally supportive and friendly to students There was no evidence of off-record strategy found in the research This is because the teacher’s ultimate goal is to make her language in class as clear as possible

Secondly, about the students’ perceptions of their teacher’s utterances in the classroom, the majority of them agreed that their teacher’s utterances were appropriate and effective to their learning That is to say, to the students’ perceptions, their teacher’s utterances were polite and they felt supportive in the classroom More importantly, data from the interview with the students reveal that their compliance with the teacher’s instructions, and requests in the classroom was due to fact that she was their teacher, even in cases which the teacher did not add “please” in her commands Culturally speaking, this is the embodiment of how Vietnamese students show respect to their students, regardless of ‘how politeness’ the utterances are Besides, the teacher was still respected and considered to have more power, albeit the close relationship with her students

The most crucial finding emerging from the data was two types of strategies that could be recognized simultaneously through one utterance As

75 such, one utterance could have multiple consequences, rather than affecting only positive face or negative face as the current theory suggests Furthermore, not all of the teacher’s utterances are clear-cut enough to be classified into the right ‘strategy of politeness’ That is to say, applying solely the theory of politeness strategy would be insufficient to analyze and interpret teacher- student interaction in EFL classroom Thus, studying teacher-student interaction should not be confined to these four types of strategies There are other aspects that should be taken into consideration, such as the speaker’s personality, the hearer’s pragmatic competence, and the speaker and hearer’s culture, knowledge and values within a particular context and society To put it simply, the four strategies theorized by Brown and Levinson (1987) are not mutually exclusive Moreover, since Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory might fail to capture all aspects or phenomenon of politeness strategy employed by the Vietnamese teacher and students, an examination through the lens of Vietnamese culture is of necessity in analyzing the data This would enable the researcher to give more plausible interpretations on the teacher-student interaction

In sum, the basic findings are consistent with previous research showing the importance of teacher’s politeness strategies towards teacher-student interaction as well as student’s leaning process Nonetheless, this is not the ‘big picture’ The finding also stresses that solely depending on Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory (1987) could not enable the researcher to give a comprehensive analysis on teacher-student interaction Moreover, the data analysis process requires a more multidimensional approach.

Implications of the findings

The findings of the current study lead to several implications Firstly, politeness strategies are culturally grounded, which means people from

76 different culture would have different perceptions of “being polite” when communicating For example, Vietnamese culture, different from the Western one, places a high value on ‘positive face’, with which the speaker is supposed to avoid confrontation by not vocalizing disagreement Therefore, when teachers are not in the same agreement with student’s ideas, they should employ indirect utterances or face-saving ones

Secondly, translanguaging, is the process whereby L2 teachers could utilize their English and mother tongue as an integrated communication system

This, if occurs in moderation in the EFL classroom, still has certain benefits to the teaching-learning process in EFL classroom, such as creating a friendlier learning atmosphere or helping students understand the instructions better As a result, translanguaging should be seen as an emancipation from the adverse second language acquisition pedagogies of the 20th century It offers students an advantage within educational systems because it (1) promotes a more thorough understanding of content; (2) possibly create a friendlier learning atmosphere (when it occurs in moderation); and, thus (3) expedite the language learning process

Thirdly, since politeness is culturally grounded and different people may have different perception towards on particular subject, it is recommended that the teacher should take into consideration student’s values and needs so that teacher-students communication would be more successful

Last but not least, teachers are also advised to apply politeness strategies so that they could improve the teacher-student interaction and relationship with the students in the EFL classroom Specifically, teachers should employ more positive and negative politeness in in-class activities, so that they could save their student’s face as well as make encourage them to get involved in their learning process more

Limitations of the study

In spite of the researcher’s great efforts in conducting the research study, the researcher was well aware that certain limitations could be identified in this study Firstly, the study has only investigated verbal utterances, i.e the non- verbal communication was neglected However, when it comes to interaction, speaker and hearer’s non-verbal communication also plays a significant role

Secondly, the researcher conducted the interview sessions after having observed the six lessons, hence, the interviewees might have forgotten some events occurring in the lesson As such, some fundamental anecdotes for data analysis process might not have been included.

Suggestions for further study

It is suggested that further work be done in the same field should firstly, extend the scope of the study For example, more subjects should be studied, and non-verbal communication should be examined during the teaching- learning process since the body language could carry more implications

Besides, teacher’s politeness strategy in criticizing student’s oral assignments (e.g presentation or debate) is worth investigating since criticism is considered one of the most face-threatening speech acts (Nguyen, 2014) Secondly, when it comes to teacher-student interaction in EFL classroom, other researchers should employ a multidimensional approach rather than solely depend on Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory for the data analysis process In so doing, a more precise analysis could be drawn Thirdly, to gain more substantial anecdotal evidence from the participants, other researchers should employ retrospective interview, which would be carried out right after each observation

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APPENDICES APPENDIX 1 TRANSCRIPTION OF TEACHER’S UTTERANCES

T: Hi guys, today we’re learning…

T: Can you open the textbook and turn to page 20 for listening section T: Now can you look at the picture on the slide?

T: Any new words Ss: silent

T: Now now picture number 1, is there any new word?

Ss: silent T: How about the title of the picture Ss: (answered softly) Massive

Ss: Massive (more loudly) T: Now guys, we have “massive”, and this is an adjective, verb or noun?

Ss: (altogether) Adjective T: Yeah, so this is the adjective to describe…?

Ss: place, land, T: Okay, now, so look at hints on the picture, ok, so can you guess what does the word massive means

Ss: very big T: very big Okay So it’s an adjective to describe something very big, right?

T: Now: any other new words?

Ss: tortoise (say softly) T: Ah, this one right? So in Vietnamese it refers to a kind of animal Ss: turtle

T: Ah… but it has… And how do you pronounce this?

Ss: say sth T: so the stress is on the 2nd or the 1st syllable?

Ss: the 1st T: Yes, this is on the first one T: Alright No more new words No more right?

T: So let’s move on to the 2nd picture

T: Ah, this is used to describe this (pointing at the cottage)… So this is an adjective, verb, or noun?

Ss: Adjective T: Yeah An adjective to describe something…?

Ss: Old (Ss responded with single word) T: No (laugh)

Ss: (laugh) T: I don’t think it’s the ancient house Btw, I did hear the word Ss: Simple?

T: and when you look at these, can you guess what are the places … T: So today we’re going to listen to… and you have to practice to 2 subskills

Now I’m going to play the recording for the first time and what you have to do is to…

Ss (listen attentively) T: Can you help me to listen and decide T: Now guys, before we listen, think of an adjective drescribing your feeling when you enjoy sth?

T: Okay, so first of all you might use “delighted” Okay, any other?

Ss: interested T: Ah it could be interested in, yes Any other?

Ss: keen on T: keen on, right

T: Now, my question is how about some adjectives to describe your feeling or things?

Ss: wonderful, outstanding T: yeah It could be

Ss: breathtaking (softly) T: Uhm, sorry?

Ss: breathtaking (more loudly) T: Ah yeah, breathtaking

Ss: Cool T: Ok Now, let’s move on to the listening Try to listen to phrases, adj to describe places and feelings, ok

Ss: (silent) T: Am I making myself understood?

Ss: Yes T: Now, listen and take note And all you need to do is listening for phrases the describe the speakers’ feeling about the trip

T: ok, so did he enjoy the trip?

Ss: yesss T: Okay, give me some evidence

Ss: he says that it’s a fantastic place T: yep We have fantastic right? Any others?

Ss: excited T: excited Anyone heard “excited ” – Ss: hơi bé ạ

T: Now guys, do you need 2nd time?

Ss: Yess T: okay, for this time, there’s no need to listen for details All you need to do, again is listen for feeling

T: So for this time, how did she enjoy the trip?

T: Yep, we did have this but unfortunately

Oh sorry, I opened the wrong recording (speak softly, smile) Okay, we’re gonna listen again

T: Hello everyone Let’s get back to our lesson

T: Let’s look through the sentences and find the key words

T: Now, no1 key word is… Yep T: No 2 guys … Excellent T: And now, Are you ready to listen?

T: Have you all got the answer?

Ss: not yet T: okay, now I’ll play part by part T: Here we go

T: now, let’s check Number 1 – True or False?

T: Now number 2, everyone, True of False? And if it is false how can you correct the information?

No 3 first, T or F? Now guys

S T: Yep, so which color should it be?

… T: How do you spell this? What does it mean

… Now, no 5 Why did you choose T? What did you hear in the recording?

… Okay, how do you spell it for me?

… T: Guys, I didn’t hear […] in the recording

Why do you think the speaker…?

… T: Now guys, let’s move to…

T: Underline the key words T: This time, I’ll call a person to report T: Now guys do you need another the time Ss: silent

Ss: yes T: Ok Listen carefully for this time [listening time]

T: Let’s check the answer Minh, can you help me out Yes

T: The 2nd one is … Nope T: This time do we need to listen another time (raise voice at the end) T: 18 or 80 (raise voice at the end)

T: How was the rain? (SS silent) T: How about the problem? What’s the problem (raise voice at the end) T: Ohh, that’s not a word to describe

T: And so, how about the beaches [pause]

T: Ok now this time, help me listen, find the words \ T: Ok let me see

… T: Now ok guys, we’re running out of time, T: So very quickly, tell me which place or trip do you prefer?

T: 5’ for brief discussion T: What you’re going to do right now is … then discuss with your partner T: Now 5’ for your discussion

T: Now I’d like to invite some of you to speak up your opinions S: Ireland

S: Because, firstly I’m so scared of wild animal I always find it dangerous to humans I just wanna travel somewhere peaceful

T: Okay I got what you mean

S: It’s also a kind of travel T: Yep Especially for those who are a kind of adventurous person

T: Yeah, good So your name is Thao S: No My name is Thuy

T: Oh, so thank you Thuy Sorry, Thuy, anyway T: And Thuy, you did make a good point in telling personal preferences

T: Now anyone who likes visiting the island? Hang?

T: Ok, good T: Thanks for your interesting discussion

T: Let’s move one to the next part T: Now, my 1st question is

T: Look at this one, tell me what can you see in this picture?

T: Can you take a look at T: Understand what I mean?

T: Now guys help me to T: What does it mean by T: For this time, you’re supposed to T: Ok guys, quick check

T: we choose personal assistant and this is Cinderella T: what do these people have in common ?

T: now think about the things of appearance, the clothing T: oh they normally took place, where some sort of place T: okey you have casual clothes, not so fancy clothes, this is the first point T: now think about a job

T: what does she normally do?

T: some sort of people, household chores, uh and this is CPA, can you guess what do they do?

T: the CAP, what do they do?

T: okay, plan the schedule, and also, sometimes they play the role as a babysitter, could be, right?

T: so their jobs, so you can see, maybe arranging the schedules, household chores, babysitter, how are these jobs?

Ss: (student) they are challenging T: They are challenging, ahaa, they could be challenging, any others T: ahaa I got this, this is some kind of, like they are not so important task, right

T: okey so not so important task T: so these are some sort of … like T: so you can see some similarities between Cinderella and CPA and that, this is why we have such the subtitle for the article and look at this one, you guys spend a minute to read the subtitle

T: Reading the subtitle and also the benefits of being a CPA T: so now guys, do you have to read the text to talk about these advantages and disadvantages

T: no, there is no need for you to read the text T: what you have to do is to make some predictions T: oke some predictions

T: you're going to make some predictions using the

T: Now I will call one person and you just like tell me 1 advantage or disadvantage from the word in the box and you can think of CPA

T: So I have the word I tell you the word

T: you can tell me what advantage or disadvantage of being CPA now I have the word …

T: you prefer advantage or disadvantage in your opinion?

T: it could be advantage or disadvantage right? So what could it be?

Ss: it could be disadvantage T: ah it could be disadvantage, ok Ss: you need to work, you need to communicate with people… To be able to do this job Ss: be able to satisfy what they want T: in order to satisfy their demand, their want, right?

T: … Move to another pair Just pick anyone, please T: ok, Tuoi I have another word This word is…

T: And this word reminds you an advantage or disadvantage of being a personal assistant?

Ss: I think CPA is like a… Because you always have to do many… Multi task to make timeline for…

T: make some arrangement for celebrity T: ok, let's move to another person

T: I want you to choose this side Ss: ok, Hang I have another one, rub shoulders with Advantage or disadvantage in your opinion?

T: Ok How could it be?

Ss: because they have to do a lot of stuff, so they are unlikely to be rub shoulders with unlikely to be rub shoulders with the star

T: So what do you mean by rub shoulders?

Ss: I think it is to be equal T: ah, to be equal with Now, still about rub shoulders with Another pair, any pair has different opinion?

T: does it mean to be equal with or does it mean to be close with?

Ss: equal with T: ya, it should be to be close with you are able to be …

T: head and shoulders means to be equal with…

T: do u think that it should be like a…

T: Ok so for that given the meaning of rub shoulders… other opinion about this?

T: should it be advantage or disadvantage?

S: advantage T: ah it could be advantage How could it be? Ok, Diep…

S: you can come into contact with, you can talk to many famous people T: Very good

T: let's move to, I have another word…

T: And Diep, can you pick any pair over this side?

S: Dương ạh ok, Duong S: I think it's an advantage Because the CPA can get to sit with celebrity in luxurious…

T: so in the last lesson, those are the advantages and disadvantages of being a personal assistant

T: now we will do task 3 do you need another time reading the text or we can do it right now?

T: task 3 can you take a look at task 3, what you have to do on task 3, on page

T: Do u need 2nd time reading the text or we can do it right now?

T: let's do it together We have the first one is CPA originated in LA…

T: so which one is the right one?

T: first or second one? The second one What is the name of the organization?

T: So why not the first option? Why 1st option is not the correct one?

T: Everyone found that? The origin of PA, it could be found of the first two lines in the text

T: that's the reason why the first one is not correct, second one is correct T: now, number two talk about the benefit or advantage of being a CPA and we have…

T: number two, the first or second option?

T: Good T: another phrase to be near a famous person in the text we have… Rub shoulders with

T: let's take a look at tasks for B

XIII and what you have to do is making prefixes in the bold sentences from 1 to 6 with the meaning from A to F, prefixes

T: number one, we have is tiny clock, so for the a, b, c or f Ss: B

T: ah it is B, right, and how about, yes number 2 would be and in Vietnamese, we have…

T: okey just choose number only T: and who do these numbers show?

T: you have the word, it can be prefix, or it can be suffix, it can be "tu goc"

T: okey so what you will have to do next?

T: this group, what do you have to do next?

T: yes you have to think whether this two have matched or not, okey?

T: and then give definitions T: so what happen if these two don’t match T: what should we do?

T: you will lose the turn and the turn will pass to others but if the two halves make the correct words and then you have ten points

T: and another person T: so who go first, now who ask first T: so guys, we have group 1, group 2, group 3, group 4, group 5 T: I am going to use the random to choose the first you have the job of cpa, right T: so in today’s lesson, we have learned some common prefixes and their meaning, right?

T: and keep it in mind that there are some that have two possible meanings

XIV think about it, and also guys try to take a look vocabulary using in the reading text, especially the one describes the up sides and down sides of being a cpa oke that’s it

T: now you have 5 minutes for break

T: Guys, have you done your HW?

SS: silent T: I'm asking about your HW Have you done that?

SS silent T: Ok, let’s move directly to our lesson today

T: And now, do you love watching movie:

Ss: Yesss T: Alright Today, we’re going to listen to people talking about the most inspiring movie

T: Do you know this film?

Ss: Star… Startrek T: How many of you have watched this…

Ss: (some of them raised their hands) T: And what is the main content of this movie?

Ss: (answer) T: Yeah And to be more specific, it’s about space – interstellar And do you know the meaning of interstellar?

Ss: space, stars T: Ok very good In fact, it talks about the space of sky and stars, right?

And now, as I’ve told you, this movie is…

T: Look at the picture cut from one scene of the movie, can you guess what are they?

T: Ok, very good T: What’s kind of invention?

T: What’s Vietnamese word for this?

T: Okay we’ll check it later

… T: Now let’s move on to the listening

T: For the 1st time listening I’d like you to take notes on the name of the inventions here

T: Are you clear about that?

T: Now I’d like you to work in pairs and exchange what you’ve got for your answer in the recording

… T: For no 2, is that CT scan?

T:Ok, how about no 3? What’s the answer for this?

T: Have you caught the word? … Chúng ta có nghe được từ … không nhờ?

Ss: no (laugh) T: Okay so it means that you need the 2nd time listening

T: Also finish the 2nd task while you’re listening

… T: Alright is it much clearer for you now?

Ss: Yes T: What does it mean by rival? Rival là gì nhỉ?

T: Do you know the meaning of cyber? Cyber là gì nhỉ?

T: Still confused about that? Uhm họ quyết định đặt tên theo cái gì nhỉ?

Ss (answer softly) T: Louder, please T: Ok that’s good T: Yến, are you sure? Do you think that’s true? Do you think what’s the problem there?

T: Ok no 4, T or F? How to correct that one?

T: No 5? F? So how to correct that one?

T: No 6? F? Good How to correct it?

T: No 7, T or F? T? Alright, that’s good

… T: Let’s move on some weird inventions T: I’m going to give you 3 pictures, you’ll look at the picture and you’ll choose the most weird invention to talk about

T: Ngoc and Lan, Do you mind moving forward?

T: You’ll have 3 handouts and you’ll share with your friends

T: Here we go T: Okay keep silent, do not show the picture to your friend

T: Now everyone, look at me now T: May I have your attention please?

T: First of all I’d like you to work within your team and within 3 minutes you need to come up with… try to make it as clear as you can…

T: Relocate yourself now T: I’d like you to move over there to have a face-to-face conversation T: Ok, settle down quickly

T: You’re talking about T: Ok, so can you give me some of the examples T: Aright, what else?

T: How good are you at science?

T: Now, I’m going to give T: Move yourself closer to your group member T: Listen to me everyone

T: Remember you’re allowed to use any T: Do you have 100% certain about the answer?

T: Very nice T: How can you pronounce this?

T: Ok, I’d like you to T: Ok very good T: Now remember to T: Ok, Time’s up T: I’m going to give you 2 minutes to exchange your answers T: 2 minutes for you and do it quickly now

T: Ok everyone, stay focused T: Can anyone help me summarize the main idea?

T: Can you stand up please?

T: Can you help me explain?

T: What does that mean? Is it?

T: Not “không tỉnh táo” It is bất tỉnh T: Now, what happened to them?

T: In which part of the passage can you locate the information? Which line?

T: Can you give me the evidence? Linh nào T: Can you locate the evidence?

T: Think twice I’ll give you time

T: It’s the former that I mentioned or the latter?

T: C’mon get your brain back (Ss laughed) T: Why? Why that?

SS: […] không thể bằng nổi T: Yeah “không thể nào bằng nổi”

T: Hoàn toàn là phủ định đúng không nhỉ?

T: Nhưng khoảng cách ở đây là xa hay là gần nhỉ?

T: Khi chúng ta dùng than chúng ta sẽ dùng…

T: Nhớ chưa nhỉ? VD cô muốn nói là thì cô nói như thế nào nhỉ?

Loads and miles dùng tương tự như nhau được chưa chỉ?

T: That it is T: Are you clear about that?

T: Number 5, Nhung nào T: Ok Lan, can you help me?

T: Ok Yến nào T: Have you ever heard of this term?

T: Hi guys T: Have you watched a lot of movies and I think some of you must like watching movies

Ss: I love watching a lot of different genre of movies

T: So, when you watch a movie you like, do you have any special feeling? how do you feel?

T: Have you watched the guardian of galaxy?

T: As I told you, as the beginning of this movie, it is rich sources of inspiration for a lot of new inventions right

T: Now, how about this movie? Can you guess when it was produced?

Ss: 20 years ago T: 20 years ago? Longer than that

T: At that time, technology hasn’t developed much, right

T: However look at photo Actually, the scenery from the movie

T: Can you guess what kind of invention is this?

T: Cellphone ok good, guys ah ha it is about the rocket

T: Ok how about number 4: iPad, computer

T: Have you heard the word pad in the movie

T: You need a second time listening right now?

T: Ok for the second time listening, I would like you to recheck the answer for the name of the inventions, both of them for the same time

T: Now please transfer this falling structure from the future seen from now, back to the future…

T: Ok for the first one

T: Number 2 Will and infinitive Would

T: Number 3 is – was or were

T: Number 4 Am are Was or were

T: Ok T: and the final one is and infinitive Was or were

T: Ok , it is very simple right

T: For number two, group A pay attention! How can we call it?

T: You know, a lot of thing we use in study

T: Oh very good! Stationery Excellent!

T: Ok, that is stationery Alright!

T: Now we move on to student B That is student B's description

T: And this one, you are looking at a tie And to be more specific, It is a neck tie, ok Neck tie

T: And again with student B We continue with student B What is that?

Ss: Tissue (student) T: Tissue…uhm Ss: Toilet paper (student) T: Yeah…Tissue is a good word, or another way, you can use the word

T: No, no, no We don't use the word "paper" We use the word "Tissue"

T: Okay, for the word "sheet", we usually talk about the newspaper, like broadsheet for example

T: Not that one, it's too large, I think And that one, you can call it "toilet bowl" or "the tissue''

T: The tissue is correct, but do not use the word "paper" like what you write

T: And how about that one?

T: You can put the tissue or the toilet bowl inside Toilet bowl holder

Ss (laughing) T: now on stage 2, you will discuss what these inventions are supposed to do, the good and bad aspects

T: And after that, you will prepare a quick summary…

T: Remember to use the structure that we learned by this invention was supposed to do this, to do what Ok?

T: Are you clear about that one? Yes alright

T: And after that, within your group, vote for the most beautiful sketch T: Ok, now,for the first one, describing the picture, right?

T: For group 1, you have two members for team A, right? Ok, so both of you will only have two minutes You will describe together

T: I'm going to turn on the clock so that you can see how much time you have

Discussing(student) T: You prepared for a quick summary, right?

T: I will call any student randomly

T: Alright, describe and talk about two examples

APPENDIX 2 Interview transcription Interview with the teacher

Interviewer: Thanks for participating the interview session

Interviewer: As observed, when you want your students to speak up, you’d say

“Sorry?” or “Excuse me?” So does this have the meaning as “Sorry, can you speak up?” or “Speak louder, please”?

Interviewer: And your students did speak up after hearing you say “Sorry?”, interesting, huh

Teacher: Yeah Sometimes my students speak quite softly and I really want them to speak up However, I find “Can you speak up, please” rather long, so this would affect or interrupt their learning or thinking process So I’d prefer to use the shorter phrases

Interviewer: And the reason for you to have such language is because of your own teaching experience or because of what you have learnt in your past ELT lessons?

Teacher: Well, I don’t remember, but perhaps from what I have observed the other teachers, I guess

Interviewer: You mean the senior teachers, right?

Interviewer: And you find this quite effective to your teaching, right? In other words, your students still understand your request when you only say “Sorry” in such context?

Interviewer: The next question, when calling your students to answer or to raise their voice or to lead them into a new activity, you often use “guys” So why do you choose to use “guys” but not “students” or “class”?

Teacher: Ah, I just want to create a comfortable learning atmosphere I don’t want the atmosphere to be “too formal”, I mean So, my students would feel more comfortable to speak English

Interviewer: As I notice in the video, when you make your request in class, for example, requiring your students to clarify their answers, you have the tendency to employ modals such as “could” and “should” Is this because of your habit doing so or because you know that this way of saying would not threaten your student’s face?

Teacher: Well, my habit, actually

Interviewer: Whoa, so it’s such a good habit then Keep it up

Interviewer: Perhaps this would be the last question

Teacher: Ok Interviewer: Sometimes you switched to Vietnamese So the purpose is…

Teacher: Ah, I use Vietnamese when I see my students lose their attention

Moreover, I have the feeling that when speaking Vietnamese, I feel closer to my students

Interviewer: Ohh, this is interesting So please tell me how do you know that you’ve got a better interaction with your students when you speak Vietnamese?

Teacher: I notice that my students became more responsive, they raise their voice more and get involved in the lesson more

Interviewer: So this means you really want the class atmosphere to be comfortable and your relationship with students to be better because your ultimate goal here is to make your students speak as much as they can Is it?

Teacher: Yes Certainly a yes And to be more precise, my students would involve in the lesson more actively They also speak more and their speaking skills, as I hope, will improve

Interviewer: yeah So again, your goal is to use appropriate language so that it’d have positive effect on your student’s learning process and learning outcomes

Interviewer: Thanks again for your participation

APPENDIX 3 Interview question for students

1 Do utterances generated by your teacher determine the class’ atmosphere?

2 Do utterances generated by your teacher determine the smoothness of teaching and learning process?

3 Do utterances generated by your teacher influence your esteem while learning 4A? Why?

4 Do feel uncomfortable when your teacher ask you to do something in the classroom? Why?

5 Did she use many utterances as “Finish your task!” in your class? How do you feel about it?

6 Do you think your teacher’s explicit (very clear) instructions are necessary in 4A class? Why?

7 Do you you feel appreciated when she asks you to do something in the classroom using the word “Please”?

8 Did she frequently use polite language such as using “Please” and “Sorry”

9 Do you think she built a positive relationship with your class? Why and how?

10 Do you obey your lecturers’ instructions because of her role as teacher in the classroom? Or is there any other reason? (i.e.: she’s the most competent and knowledgeable, persons in the classroom; she will reward you with good scores; you want to please her; you are afraid of punishment if disobeying her, etc)

Thanks so much for your cooperation

Tiêu đề	A Study On Teacher’s Politeness Strategies In The EFL Classroom
Tác giả	Tran Hoang Anh
Người hướng dẫn	Prof. Dr. Nguyen Hoa, Dr. Huynh Anh Tuan, Dr. Hoang Thi Hanh
Trường học	Vietnam National University, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies
Chuyên ngành	English Linguistics
Thể loại	ma major thesis
Năm xuất bản	2019
Thành phố	Hanoi

Định dạng
Số trang	130
Dung lượng	1,71 MB