Abstract
A body of research indicates that Arab EFL learners are incompetent in oral communication. This has been the case of the Libyan
EFL learners who encounter great difficulties in speaking skills. Despite spending years in learning English, and building good
linguistic knowledge, they fail to employ that knowledge in real communicative situations. This might be the outcome of
inadequate teaching approaches that are employed by Libyan EFL teachers. Their overreliance on traditional methods that
emphasize extensive linguistic input rather than communicative output result in what Wolff (2010) calls 'mute English learners',
who can only read and write but are unable to speak. This paper aimed to investigate the Libyan EFL learners' speaking
difficulties and the factors underlying this problem. Total 125 students, from Sebha University, Libya participated in the study.
Questionnaires and interviews were deployed for gathering data. The questionnaires and interviews were designed to elicit
information about the participants' learning experience, the way they were taught English and speaking difficulties. Data were
analysed using SPSS and content analysis. The study revealed that Libyan learners face difficulties in oral communication due to
linguistic and psychological barriers. The results also showed that insufficient exposure to the target language and frequent use of
Arabic, inside and outside the classroom, were the main factors contributing to the Libyan EFL learners' speaking difficulties.
Lack of speaking activities and overemphasis on accuracy at the expense of fluency by the teachers were other contributing
factors.