A Qualitative Study into Teacher Power Use in EFL Classrooms: The Impact for Learning Motivation

AbstractAlbeit extensive studies on teacher power use in EFL classrooms have been widely carried out, there is apaucity of research that explores students’ and teacher’s voices with regard to the enactment of teacherpower in the classrooms. To fill this gap, the present study qualitatively investigates the voices shared bystudents and teacher in experiencing and enacting teacher power. Situated in an English as a foreignlanguage (EFL) classroom, the study was participated by three successful students and a single teacher.Findings suggest that some aspects influence students’ reluctant to speak such as limited vocabulary,making correct sentences, developing ideas, being confident, having low motivation. In addition,teacher power can contribute positively to student learning motivation by providing enthusiasm andmotivation through the power that teachers have such as coercive power, referent power, rewardpower, expert power, and legitimate power. These can all be used as power tools by the teacher toencourage students in the class to participate during learning. Interestingly, the finding shows that thedominant factor that greatly motivates students is reward power. The power of teachers who are able tochange discipline behavior for students is coercive power and legitimate power. The results of the studyshow that these two powers can be used to show the assertiveness of teachers to students who oftenviolate. Further studies are encouraged to explore teacher power using case study design.