This research was aimed to know students’ difficulties in speaking and the strategies used to overcome with that difficulties faced by fourth semester students of English Department in Universitas Muhammadiyah Purwokerto. The sample was 78 students of fourth semester English Department students. The method used was descriptive method. In collecting the data, the writer used questionnaire to find the speaking difficulties and the strategies to overcome that difficulties.
This study found that many students had more than one speaking difficulties. The difficulties in linguistics factor found were lack of vocabulary (55.93%), grammar (51.9%), pronunciation (25.6%), while in psychological factor were lack of motivation (55.8%), fear of mistake (52.6%), anxiety (49.35%), lack of confident (43.6%), and shyness (34.6%). In order to overcome that difficulties, students applied some strategies. This study found that the strategies used the most was affective strategies (67.53%), then memory strategies (67.25%), compensation strategies (64.93%), cognitives strategies (61.53%), social strategies (59.8%), metacognitive strategies (56.4%).