Maxim of encouragement in the ESL classroom: A case of Zabzugu Senior High School

Abstract

It is important to listen to instructor’s voice to be able to understand classroom practice. This is especially crucial in the SLA. Teachers’ mental images, thoughts, and processes employed when teaching are believed to provide interpretative frameworks or principles that they use to understand and approach their teaching. These principles, technically termed maxims; range from order, conformity, efficiency, involvement, planning, empowerment, accuracy, to encouragement. This work aims to explore the role of the maxim of encouragement. The primary focus is on the teacher as an extrinsic factor in the ESL classroom because s/he is reflected as the most noteworthy figure in second language acquisition. Specifically, the work seeks to identify how and what impact does encouragement has on learner’s participation in the ESL class in the form of student-teacher relationship in the ESL classroom, and the teacher’s role in the ESL classroom. Being a case study (Zabzugu Senior High School), this work opted for a qualitative approach. To attain the objectives of the study, ten (10) professional English language teachers were purposively selected. Responses were gathered through interviews, questionnaires, and observation checklists. Findings were grouped into two themes; student-teacher relationship in the ESL classroom and classroom atmosphere during ESL lesson. The study generally revealed that positive encouragement plays a vital role in teaching and learning as it enhances effective learner participation which eventually improves learner performance. This was because most of the teachers this understudy wanted and exhibited a positive attitude towards a friendly but formal relationship with students in the ESL classroom. The data equally revealed that the majority of the teachers expressed a desire for a relaxed atmosphere but a little over half of them demonstrated a relaxed atmosphere during their teaching periods. The study, therefore, calls for a paradigm shift from the ‘traditional angle’ of language teaching to the all-embraced communicative language teaching (CLT).