Students' Strategies in Building Their English Fluency in Speaking for Argumentative Purposes Subject
EKA SHUCI WULANDARI, Reg. Num. 2130104020, entitled: “STUDENTS’ STRATEGIES IN BUILDING ENGLISH FLUENCY IN SPEAKING FOR ARGUMENTATIVE PURPOSES SUBJECT”, English Teaching Department, Faculty of Tarbiyah and Teacher Training, State Islamic University (UIN) Mahmud Yunus Batusangkar, 2026. This study was motivated by the observation that, within the same Speaking for Argumentative Purposes class, some students were able to speak fluently and confidently while others struggled with hesitation and blanking. This gap suggests that fluency in argumentative speaking depends not only on language proficiency but also on the strategies students apply, consciously or unconsciously. This study therefore aims to describe the strategies employed by fourth-semester students in building English speaking fluency in the Speaking for Argumentative Purposes subject. This study used a qualitative case study design involving eleven fourth-semester students of the English Teaching Department, purposively selected through classroom observation and the lecturer’s recommendation based on the criterion of speaking fluency. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and documentation, and analysed using the interactive model of Miles and Huberman (data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification), with trustworthiness checked through triangulation. The findings show that students built their argumentative speaking fluency through six interrelated strategy categories. Cognitive, compensation, and social strategies were reported by all eleven informants; affective strategies by ten; memory strategies by nine; and metacognitive strategies by eight. No informant relied on a single category alone, and the weighting of strategies shifted according to the predictability of the speaking format (discussion, speech, or debate). These findings indicate that building fluency in argumentative speaking is a strategically diverse, context-sensitive process rather than the mastery of one single technique. Keyword: Students' Strategies, Speaking Fluency, Argumentative Speaking