Abstrak
This study investigated studens diticulties in speaking Engish in EFL and the strategies students use to overcome these dificulties The research data was obtained using a qualitative descriptive method The fiflh-semester students from the English Education Depariment were selected as the informants usinga purposive sampling technique. Research data was collected by interviewing students with in-depth semi-structured interviews. The results of this study indicated that students experience difficulties in speaking English. The first factor was social culture; 1) family involvement, 2) student living environment, and 3) peer involvement. The second factor is psychological; 4) feeling afraid, and 5) feeling ashamed. The third factor was linguistics; 6) local dialect, 7) word pronunciation, 8) grammar knowledge, 9) vocabulary, and 10) filler. The fourth factor was general knowledge, including 11) world/ topic knowledge, 12. limited study time and 13) need for understanding, Student strategies to overcome these difficulties included taking English courses, using English as daily communication, making dialogues with family/peers, attending an English community, practicing speaking through online games, reading tongue twisters, preparing material earlier, and looking for material from the intemnet/leamning websites. This study implied that having good speaking is affected by the social environment, motivation, language proficiency, and world knowledge. Besides, it requires effective leamning strategies to make an improvement.