摘要：The choice of words used by lecturers such as politeness strategies in the classroom
interaction is very important, not only for controlling the classroom but also for the
process of acquiring the language itself. This study is aimed at investigating lecturers’
politeness strategies in criticizing teaching performance of students with multicultural
backgroundsin a microteaching class. This qualitative study was conducted with students
from multicultural backgrounds. The subject of this study was a lecturer who taught
microteaching. Findings show that there are four most frequent criticism strategies used
by the lecturer: demand for change, indicating standard, advice about change and other
hints. In addition, the highest proportion of politeness strategies applied by the lecturer
is occupied by positive politeness, off-record strategy, bald on record, and negative
politeness. It implies that the lecturer mostly applies positive politeness in criticizing the
students, in order to save the students’ face, get closer, and give more positive feedback to
help students develop their teaching performance. Facts also indicate that students’
multicultural backgrounds do not affect too much on the lecturer’s decision in applying
politeness strategies, yet it needs to be very careful in delivering them.
