This study aimed to explore the teaching strategies employed by pre-service teachers at the English Education Department during the teaching practicum, specifically for teaching speaking, and to identify the challenges they encountered in implementing these strategies. The central issue identified was that pre-service teachers struggled with students' diverse backgrounds and English-speaking abilities. Furthermore, the pre-service teacher's speaking strategies have a lot of influence on students' speaking mastery. The study focused on four pre-service English teachers who had completed their teaching practicum at two different senior high schools in Surakarta. The data were collected through open-ended questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis. The data analysis process included examination of the data, coding, categorizing, and identifying major themes. The findings of this study revealed that: 1) Pre-service English teachers used teaching strategies in the form of discussions, presentations, and group work because they were considered acceptable in learning speaking skills. 2) Challenges or problems faced by pre-service English teachers were based on differences in background and students' English-speaking abilities, resulting in students being insecure and afraid of making mistakes. The findings underscore the necessity for improved preparation and support before teaching practice to effectively enhance the speaking skills of pre-service teachers and address the challenges faced in real classroom settings
