In accordance with an example embodiment of the present invention, a method comprises allocating a control channel resource in a wireless relay transmission frame on a wireless relay link; generating a control signaling based on at least one of a resource allocation scheme, a status of the wireless relay link and a traffic condition of the wireless relay link; mapping the control signaling to the allocated control channel resource via at least one of a time-first mapping, a frequency-first mapping, and a multiplexing mapping; and transmitting the control signaling in the allocated control channel resource on the wireless relay link to at least one associated relay node.