Abstract name : syarifah balqis student no. : 1106102020043 study program : english education title : an analysis of students’ communication strategies in efl speaking classroom key words : speaking, communication strategies, efl classroom communication strategies (css) can be a good solution for students to handle communication problems. this qualitative study was set to analyze the used of css of first grade students at sman modal bangsa, proposed by tarone (1978). observation sheet was used to collect the data. the result of the study reveals that out the 83 utterances of six types of css are applied in this study; 27 utterances are literal translation, 25 utterances are approximation, 16 utterances are appeal for assistance, 12 utterances are language switch, 2 utterances are massage abandonment, and 1 utterance are topic avoidance. moreover, literal translation, approximation, and language switch became the most frequent strategy used by low achiever students.