In teaching English as a foreign language, politeness has become a major issue. It is regarded as one way to maintain effective classroom interaction. This study investigates the politeness strategies, both positive and negative, used by Indonesian EFL students in a classroom context. This descriptive qualitative research design involved some EFL students enrolled in a postgraduate program of Language in Use course at one public university in Bandung, Indonesia. Data was collected through observation, note-taking, and recording and analysed by the framework of politeness strategies by Brown and Levinson (1987). The study identifies four positive types of politeness strategies used by the students in EFL classrooms which include the us of in-group identity marker, assert or presupposing speaker knowledge of and concern for hearer’s wants, seek agreement/safe topics, and joke. Meanwhile, the study only found a negative type of politeness strategy used by the students in EFL classrooms, that is, apologizing. It can be concluded that the EFL students used several of Brown and Levinson's theory (1987) politeness strategies in their presentation and discussion of both positive and negative politeness. The study suggests that teachers and students use this finding as a reference to develop effective classroom communication.

Authors:
Destiyana Destiyana, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Indonesia
Ahmad Bukhori Muslim, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Indonesia

About the Presenter(s)
Destiyana, S.Pd is currently a Master’s student of English Education Study Program at Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung, West Java, Indonesia

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