In Indonesia, English is used as a foreign language. Therefore, students face difficulties when trying to speak English. This research was conducted to find the difficulties that influence students’ speaking. Moreover, to know what are the causes of those difficulties in English class.

This research used a qualitative approach. The design of this research was descriptive. This research was conducted at Lambung Mangkurat University. The researcher decided to investigate two classes of basic speaking class from Teacher Training and Education Faculty of English Language Education in the second semester. There were 19 students in each basic speaking class A1 and A5. In this research, the instruments used to collect the data were observation and interview. The collected data were analyzed by reducing the data, presenting the data, taking the conclusion, or verification. The researcher used data triangulation to show the trustworthiness of the data.

Based on the result of the research, it could be seen that there are some difficulties and causes of those difficulties that make students difficult to speak English. That difficulty comes from students’ psychological aspects such as anxiety, shyness, fear of mistake, and lack of confidence. Moreover, in students’ linguistic aspects such as lack of vocabulary, poor of pronunciation, and mother tongue interference. The researcher found that the causes of those difficulties are not ready to speak, personality, fear of negative evaluation, feel pressured, less reading English literature, less practicing to speak English and confusion. Based on the finding, it suggests that the students should be more active in speaking English and gain awareness that speaking is an essential point to communicate.