In instructional interactions, a lecturer should be able to build harmony in a conducive classroom atmosphere in order that a learning objective can be attained. This study aims to describe recounting as the realization of Brown and Levinson's positive politeness strategies in instructional interactions in the classroom. The subjects of this study were six lecturers from the Satya Wacana Christian University Salatiga. The research data were in the form of lecturer utterances when lecturing. The data were collected using the participant observation. The data analysis was performed using descriptive techniques following the Miles and Huberman flow model. Based on the results of data analysis, it revealed that the recounts employed included ones about lecturers, students, lecturers' experiences, and public figures/attitudes of public figures. These findings can be used to strengthen and revise the positive politeness sub-strategies of Brown and Levinson (1987). In addition to functioning to forge a close relationship with interactants, the recounting strategy also serves to instill character values and to motivate students to be more disciplined, and to optimize their own potential of becoming creative students. The use of recount as a positive politeness sub-strategy has contributed to the efforts of creating humanistic-based learning.