1. English is taught as an integrated subject to develop the students’ language
competences. It is learnt by the students in order to be utilized in communication.
The ability to communicate, including the ability to speak in English is important
because it enables the students to interact with others.
To increase the speaking ability, the students should practice it reguarly.
Therefore, many schools conduct an extra-curricular activity as elective program
to give the students more opportunities to improve their speaking ability.
However, the students who attend the elective program are those who are
interested in increasing their proficiency in speaking and are good enough in it.
Thus, another kind of English program, called English Conversation class, is
conducted as an intra-curricular activity. Since the program is compulsory, all the
students are required to join it.
One of the schools which have applied this program is SMA Negeri 8
Malang. This school has conducted this kind of program since 1997. In the
English conversation class, the students must speak English. Unfortunately, they
are not used to speaking English in their daily life. Hence, they have some
difficulties in delivering their ideas. To minimize the problems, the students
invent some communication strategies.
This present study aimed at describing the students’ problems in speaking
and the strategies they used to overcome the problems. The subjects of this study
were students of the eleventh grade since the conversation class is compulsory for
the eleventh grade only. The data were collected through direct observation, field
notes, a questionnaire, and interviews concerning the students’ problems and
strategies in speaking English. This study is a descriptive qualitative study
because it describes facts dealing with the process of situations and the course of
events happening in natural settings.
The findings of study show that the problems which occured in the
conversation class were caused by three factors: lack of support, lack of
motivation and peer pressure. The problems included worrying about others’
responses, using Indonesia rather than English, having inadequate English
vocabulary, being unable to pronounce well what they mean, focusing more on
correct function and structure, being timid or less confident of speaking English.
Of all the problems, lack of support was considered as the main reason for their
speaking problem. Lack of motivation is the next reason, and peer pressure is the
last reason for their speaking problems.
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The findings show that to cope with the speaking problems, the students
employed eight communication strategies: avoiding communication, adjusting the
message, paraphrasing, using approximation, creating new words, switching to the
native language, using non-linguistic resources, and seeking help. Among these
strategies, switching to the native language and seeking help occurred most
frequently in the class.
Based on the findings of this study, the research, the researcher suggests
that the students can adopt and apply communication strategies identified in this
study to handle their speaking problems. For the teacher, it is suggested that they
help students to minimize their speaking problems and introduce other strategies

2. to the students to overcome the problems. The last suggestion is for other
researchers. It is suggested that they make in-depth investigation about the
students’ problems and strategies in dealing with the problems which are not
mentioned in this study.