An Analysis of Students’ Speaking Hesitation at SMP IT Teuku Umar

This research was about hesitation in students’ speaking, which used qualitative method. The subject of this research was the students of the first grade at SMP IT Teuku Umar, consisting of one class of 30 students. It aimed to determine the types of hesitation that occurred most often in students’ speaking class and to investigate the factors affecting students’ hesitation in speaking. This study was conducted from 23rd - 24th November 2022. The techniques of collecting the data were observation and interview. The observation was used to find the types of hesitation that the students often made in their speaking. The interview was used to know the factors of hesitation. The result of this research; 1) almost all of the students did hesitation in their speaking. There are nine types of hesitation made by students in their speaking: fillers, repeats, false start (un-retraced), false start (retraced), correction, interjection, stutter, and a slip of the tongue. The observation found that the types of hesitation often made by students are fillers, 2). The factors that make the students often hesitate in speaking are difficulty in pronouncing the word, confusion in choosing a word to use, shyness, breathing, and nervousness. To conclude, the students are expected to be better at speaking English and reduce using these types of hesitation because the students in speaking class must improve their speaking without hesitation.