EFL Teachers’ Strategies in Teaching Speaking to Tenth Grade Students of Vocation High School

Abstract

This study investigates EFL teachers’ strategies in teaching speaking to tenth-grade students of UPTD SMKN Kalumpang. Speaking is a crucial English skill for vocational high school students because it supports workplace communication, academic interaction, job interviews, presentations, customer service, and professional collaboration. However, preliminary findings at UPTD SMKN Kalumpang revealed that many students were reluctant to speak English due to low confidence, speaking anxiety, limited vocabulary, pronunciation difficulties, and limited exposure to English outside the classroom. This research employed a qualitative approach with an interpretive paradigm to explore the strategies used by EFL teachers, how the strategies were implemented, the obstacles faced by teachers, and students’ responses to speaking activities. Data were collected through classroom observations, semi-structured teacher interviews, student interviews, student questionnaires, and field notes during February–March 2026. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings show that the teacher consistently implemented four major speaking strategies: role play, dialogue practicing, storytelling, and discussion and debate. These strategies reflected Communicative Language Teaching principles because they promoted interaction, fluency, accuracy, collaboration, and meaningful communication. Role play was the most frequently implemented and most preferred strategy because it helped students reduce anxiety and speak through assigned characters. Dialogue practicing built students’ foundational confidence through structured peer interaction. Storytelling supported narrative competence and vocabulary development, while discussion and debate generated the highest verbal interaction and critical thinking. The teacher implemented the strategies through pre-learning, main activities, feedback, and reflection. The main obstacles included students’ low confidence, language anxiety, mixed proficiency levels, limited audiovisual resources, time constraints, and limited English exposure. The study concludes that contextually adaptive and communicative strategies can improve students’ participation in speaking, although sustained support is needed to strengthen spontaneous speaking confidence.