Teacher Talk: A Study on Male and Female Teachers’ Instructional and Management Talks in EFL Classroom at SMAK Makassar

1 ABSTRACT The aim of this research was to identify the language function of instructional and management talks used by male and female teachers at SMAK Makassar, to identify the differences between male and female teachers’ instructional and management talks at SMAK Makassar, and to know the students’ perception towards the teachers’ instructional and management talks at SMAK Makassar. This research used descriptive qualitative approach. The major instrument used was observation, questionnaire, and interview. Based on the result of the study, there are 14 (fourteen) language functions of instructional talk and 11 (eleven) language functions of management talk. Besides, the similarities of the instructional and management talks used by male and female teachers at SMAK Makassar were in terms of literal translation, code switching, self and other repetition, and meaning negotiation. Furthermore, the difference was in terms of self monitoring strategy; the male teacher tended to perform self initiated repair while making a mistake while female teacher did not perform self initiated repair when make mistakes. Based on the result of the students’ perception on instructional and management talks in EFL classroom used by the male and female teachers at SMAK Makassar, the teacher talks gave big effect in teaching-learning process. It could be seen that most students perceived that their teacher would like to influence them indirectly by accepting their feeling, praising and encouraging them, accepting and even using their ideas, and also asking questions to them. From the description above, the instructional and management talks are important in the success of the learning objectives and the basic skills of a teacher in improving students learning activities in classroom. Keywords: Teachers Talk, Instructional and Management Talks, EFL Classroo