The ability of teachers to open the lessons is very influential on the success of a lesson. Opening skills are activities carried out by teachers to create an atmosphere so that students are mentally prepared and focused on the things to be learned. At the beginning of the lesson, not all students have mental readiness and are interested in following the things to be learned. The importance of the ability to open lessons sometimes cannot be fully carried out by teachers due to various factors. This study aimed to investigate teachers’ difficulties in implementing Opening Stage of lesson plan of the of Merdeka Curriculum and their effect to the student’s motivation in following the EFL class. 8 English teachers of Vocational High School were involved in this study. The data were revealed through class observation to know the implementation of opening stage, interview to know the problems faced by the teacher on the items of opening stage could not be implemented, and close-ended questionnaire to know the effect on student’s motivation in joining the EFL Class. Seven of the eight teachers who responded to the survey had successfully completed a good level. More than 70% of the 15 things on the Opening Stage have been put into practice. Only 1 teacher, namely teacher 1 from school 2, had a 46.67% implementation rate. It shows that the teachers are already aware that the opening stage is crucial to be done since it will impact how well subsequent learning goes all the way through to completion. According to the interview results, each person encountered different problems for the items that could not be executed. The findings of the interviews revealed a variety of responses; some were due to forgetfulness, others to a lack of learning time, and a lack of awareness of the significance of the opening stage items. All teachers shared one common cause, it is the human error component of forgetting. From the result of Anova-Test, it shows that schools with high implementation of the opening stage will impact to high student’s motivation. There were differences in the average results of student’s motivational between School 2 and School 3 and also between School 3 and School 4.