(2022), 5 (2): 142–148 142 P-ISSN 2623-0356 E-ISSN 2654-5586 FOREIGN TEACHERS’ INSIGHTS REGARDING TEACHING “CONVERSATION” IN BOARDING SCHOOL: CHALLENGES AND STRATEGIES Lestari Budianto 1) , Iwan Hadi 2) , Siti Zulaiha 3) SMPBP Amanatul Ummah SUBMISSION TRACK ABSTRACT Submitted : 09 June 2022 Speaking becomes one of the English skills that should be developed. One of the schools that provided a special speaking class for the students is the Islamic Boarding Based Junior High School of Amanatul Ummah. Speaking class is labeled as a conversation subject in this school. In conversation class, the teachers are required to improve the students’ speaking skills. The teachers who handled a conversation subject were foreign teachers who used full English during teaching and learning. This paper investigates the foreign teachers’ perspectives of the teaching conversation subject. This research used qualitative method using descriptive approach. The participants of this research were two foreign conversation teachers of SMPBP and the participants were chosen using purposive sampling technique. The data were obtained through three instruments namely observation, semi- structured interviews, and documentation. The data then were analyzed using four stages namely data collection, data reduction, data display, and drawing conclusion. The result of this research showed that the foreign teachers faced several problems related to the students’ understanding, engagement, and teaching materials. The strategies used by the teachers were using digital tools, gestures, language simplifying, early materials preparation, and discussion with senior EFL teachers. This research contributes to the literature of English language teaching related to the teaching conversation subject. Accepted : 20 September 2022 Published : 18 October 2022 KEYWORDS Foreign Teachers, Conversation, Challenges, Strategies CORRESPONDENCE E-mail: antobuddy104@yahoo.com Introduction English becomes one of the compulsory subjects taught in Junior High School. The teaching of English regulation depends on the system of a school. In a private school, the period of teaching English may differ from the period in a state school. Teaching English in a boarding school which the students stay days and nights gets more attention (As’ad et al., 2020; Aziz et al., 2021; Firman Mansir, Abdul Karim, Tumin, 2020). The meeting numbers of the teaching English is more than in the state school which in the state school English is taught 2 meetings in a week but in a boarding school, in this case in Junior High School of Amanatul Ummah Boarding School, English is taught 4 meetings in a week. Due to the more meetings of teaching English in the boarding school, the subject of English gets another term for a meeting in a week. There is a new term called “Conversation”. The appearance of conversation subject is as the focus on teaching speaking. Teaching speaking can be challenging because the teacher’s focus is to train the students to be able to produce meaningful oral output (Putra et al., 2022). The target of the conversation subject was to train the students to speak English better while the teaching of English subjects focused on writing and grammar. In short, in Junior High School of Amanatul Ummah Boarding School, teaching English provided three meetings in a week plus one meeting in a week for teaching conversation subjects.