The ongoing speaking anxiety experienced by EFL students, driven by multiple contributing factors, raises the urgent need to explore effective strategies to overcome it. This study aimed to explore the main factors of speaking anxiety and the main strategies to overcome speaking anxiety that were experienced by second-year EFL students in Universitas Kuningan. This study used a qualitative approach by using a case study design. The participants were 6 second-year EFL learners. The results of this study show that speaking anxiety can be caused by different personal challenges for each student. In detail, 34% of them experienced fear of making mistakes as their main factor, 33% showed limited vocabulary, and the remaining 33% showed lack of preparation. Based on the findings, among the five strategies, which are preparation, relaxation, positive thinking, peer seeking, and resignation, 33% of the participants chose preparation as the most important. Meanwhile, the majority, 67%, said positive thinking is the key to overcoming speaking anxiety. This shows that while preparation matters, participants believe a positive mindset is more helpful in managing speaking anxiety. This study concludes that speaking anxiety impacts students’ performance, making it important to have effective strategies to overcome speaking anxiety. Moreover, the implications of the study offer valuable insights for educators and learners, and the findings may serve as a reference for future research.
Keywords: factor of speaking anxiety, speaking anxiety, speaking skill, strategy to overcome speaking anxiety