ABSTRACT Sudirman, 2014. The Problems of Communicative Approach Implementation in Teaching Speaking (A Case Study at SMAN 1 Rikit Gaib-Gayo Lues). Thesis, Graduate Program in English Education of Syiah Kuala University. Advisor: (1) Dr. Sofyan A. Gani, M.A. (2) Abdul Manan, M. Sc., M.A., Ph.D. Key words: Problems, Communicative Approach, Speaking. Communicative Approach or Communicative Language Teaching has been quite popular in Indonesia for several years. Literally, it can be easily known that the main focus of Communicative Approach is communication and therefore the major responsibility of the English teachers is to train the students to communicate in English competently. This approach sounds simple and perfect in theory. However, some obstructions often occur after being put into practice. Therefore, the intention of writing this thesis was to present some findings based on the field research with the main focus was on the difficulties faced by the English teachers in applying Communicative Approach to teaching speaking. In addition, this research was also aimed to reveal the ways how the teachers solve the problems, as well as their suggestions and expectations in enhancing students’ proficiency in English especially in speaking skill. This study took place at SMAN 1 Rikit Gaib, where three English teachers at this school were chosen as the subjects. It constituted a case study and a qualitative research design was used in order to find out the data to answer the research questions. In obtaining the data, three kinds of technique were employed, they were; questionnaires, observations, and interview. The obtained data then grouped and classified based on the research problems. The research result revealed that all of the English teachers faced several difficulties in implementing Communicative Approach. The difficulties can be classified into four categories; teacher related problems, students related problems, education system related problems, and method or approach related problems. The teacher and student related problems were, for instance, teachers do not have sufficient time for developing communicative materials, teachers have deficiency in spoken English, students have low motivation to class participation, and students have poor vocabulary and grammar mastery. Other problems were, for example, big class size and scarcity of communicative materials. There have been some efforts done by the English teachers in overcoming the problems such as inviting the students to study outside the classroom, teaching grammar in special sessions, and making group discussion so that the advanced ones can help the less ones within the group. The teachers also suggested many things for the implementation of Communicative Approach and students’ oral competencies improvement such as adding more classrooms in order to reduce the class size, making extracurricular activity such as speaking club, and providing support for adding authentic and communicative material.