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Abstract One of the significant concerns of communicative way of learning is to be able to convey meaning and not just physical words in a language. The study of speech acts and politeness could possibly help achieve this. When using speech acts, one should take into consideration the conversational rules of the language and in order to establish a safe and harmonious conversation, it is better to use certain strategies to eliminate their possible threatening effects. This study aims to find out the politeness strategies used by the teachers and how the politeness affects to the students compliance. The focus is on directive and expressive speech acts. The subjects of this study were three lectures and the students of English class. The data was gathered by video audio recording the teachers utterances and the students compliance to the teacher, in order to find the teachers politeness principles and the students compliance to the teachers utterances. In the data analysis, it is found that 1) the teachers used ten maxims in their communication to the students. They are tact maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim agreement maxim, Obligation (of S to O) maxim, sympathy maxim, modest maxim, Obligation (of O to S) maxim, Opinion reticence maxim, and feeling reticence maxim. 2) The lecturers dominantly used tact maxim in their directive speech acts to the students. 3) Students pragmatic competence and cultural awareness were the factors that affected the students compliance to the teachers politeness utterances. The findings of this study will probably give insights into the pragmatic and conversational rules EFL.