The Integral Role of Instructional Speech Acts into Student Learning Engagement amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic

Educational institutions are faced with an enormous challenge due to the CoronaVirus (Covid-19) disease. The deadly and infectious Covid-19 led to the closure of schools and universities across the world that made teaching and learning more difficult. This study aimed to examine the integral role of the teachers’ language in communicating and relating to students during this time of pandemic. The language used were specified into three speech acts namely, decision-giving, meaning-making and empathetic language. As for the methodology, quantitative research has been utilized in the process of collecting and analyzing data. Simple Linear Regression analysis was used to predict the effect of the three instructional speech acts to the learning engagement of the students. The results indicated that each of the three instructional speech acts has a positive linear relationship with the students’ learning engagement.