The purpose of this study was to elaborate illocutionary acts performed by the English teacher during the teaching and learning process at SMA Negeri 1 Candi Laras Selatan in the school year 2018/2019 based on Searle’s theory of speech acts. This research was descriptive-qualitative. The data or the object of this study was the words, phrases, and utterances uttered by the English teacher himself. The data were obtained through conducting observations accompanied by audio recording. Then, transcribed into the written form, selected to fit the objectives of the study, recorded into the datasheets, interpreted and analyzed using the theory of speech acts proposed by Searle. The data were analyzed by using an interactive qualitative method proposed by Miles and Huberman (1994). Besides, the coding system was also applied to ease the researcher in classifying the data. The researcher used theoretical triangulation. He compared the data of this research to the related theory of Searle.

The findings showed that from 326 utterances, the most frequently used of the illocutionary act was directives (64.044%) occurred in 195 times, while 100 the least frequent was commission (2.247%) occurred 7 times. The use of directives was understandable since the relation between the teacher and the students 50 was asymmetrical. The teacher’s use of asking allowed the students to participate more actively in the lesson. By giving the question, the teacher can know whether the students understand or not about the lessons learned. Meanwhile, asking was employed to check the students’ background knowledge.