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).
Description:
A Dissertation in the Department of Applied Linguistics, Faculty of Foreign
Languages Education, submitted to the School of
Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the award of the degree of
Master of Education
(Teaching of English as a Second Language)
in the University of Education, Winneba
JUNE, 2023
