Investigating Students’ Ability to Speak English: a Case Study of the First Semester Students’ of Department of English Education in Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta in 2018/2019 Academic Year

This study aims at investigating ability to speak in English at the Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta at the Department English Education in semester 1 of the academic year 2018/2019. This research is a qualitative descriptive research. The data are students’ speaking abilities taken from the students as informants. The methods of collecting data are observation, interviews and documents. The technique of analyzing data are data reduction, data appearance, conclusions and verification. The findings of this research are that, the students level is B2 Level has 4 aspects namely, (1) Grammar and vocabulary, (2) Discourse management, (3) Pronunciation, (4) Interactive communication, and the aspects of students master better are grammar and vocabulary. The conclusion is that they have good speaking and their grammar and vocabulary can be understood