Teacher's Use of Politeness Strategies in Fostering Solidarity and Minimizing Imposition in Second Classrooms

Abstract

This paper highlights the language use of two teachers in adult advanced level ESL conversation classes to illustrate the extent to which they used positive- and negative-politeness strategies to foster solidarity and minimize imposition in the classroom. The teachers' and students' conversations were collected by means of audiotapes, observer comments, interviews, and fieldnotes. The results of this study indicate that the two ESL teachers did make considerable efforts to build a sense of community and trust with the other class members. For instance, teacher-fronted physical layout and power mismatch social structure in the traditional classroom have been adapted to cater for the students' affective state to reduce the threat of the learning situations and facilitate the students' language learning. However, the two ESL teachers differed in the degree of the positive-politeness strategies being employed, depending on their perception of the appropriate social distance in the classroom.