This qualitative study probes into teacher power use and student silence in an EFL classroom in an English department of a private university in Makassar, Indonesia. Anchored by a qualitative analysis and participated by one female teacher and three EFL students, data were garnered through in-depth interviews and observation. It was designed to find out what type of power the teacher used to minimize the effect of students' silence. Using French and Raven's (2008) analytic lens for power use in classrooms, the study's findings suggest that the types of teacher power used in the class are coercive power, expert power, reward power, legitimate power, and referent power. The results of the study showed that the teachers mostly used their reward power as a strategic move to make students interested in alleviating their silence in the classroom. In some conditions, when necessary, a form of coercive power was also employed by the teacher. In addition, student' silence in the class is influenced by limited vocabulary, grammar in speaking, expression, boredom, shame and insecurity when speaking in English.