Managing Classroom Interaction Through Pragmatic Strategies in Indonesian Bilingual Primary Education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26740/jp.v11n1.p78-83Keywords:
Pragmatic strategies, Classroom interaction, Bilingual primary education, Teacher talkAbstract
This study investigates how primary school teachers employ pragmatic strategies to manage classroom interaction in bilingual educational settings. Drawing on pragmatic and sociolinguistic perspectives, the study adopts a qualitative descriptive design involving classroom observations and semi-structured interviews with three bilingual primary school teachers in Indonesia. Approximately 420 minutes of classroom interaction were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using a pragmatic coding framework focusing on code-switching, politeness strategies, and register variation. The findings reveal that these strategies function as integrated interactional resources rather than isolated linguistic choices: code-switching supports instructional clarity and interactional flow, politeness strategies mitigate face-threatening acts during feedback and classroom management, and flexible register shifts balance pedagogical authority with relational closeness. The study contributes to classroom discourse research by demonstrating how pragmatic strategies operate collectively to manage interaction in bilingual primary classrooms and underscores the importance of developing teachers’ pragmatic competence in linguistically diverse educational contexts.
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