Why Do Pakistani Students are Reluctant to Speak English

English is the most widely used language in the world of academia and in the past few years a great increase in English language teaching (ELT) has been seen in various disciplines at all levels in Pakistan. But it is matter of great concerns that even studying English from the primary level, the Pakistani college and university students are unable to communicate effectively in English. The aim of present research is to investigate factors and causes that are big obstacle in speaking A close ended questionnaire was distributed among the 110 female students of two well-known education institutes of district Faisalabad Pakistan, to find out their attitudes towards spoken English and reasons behind the problems in communicating in English. The findings show that mostly students are victims of problems i.e. lack of vocabulary, syntax, fluency, cramming, and poor understanding of grammatical rules, proper use of tenses and structure of a sentence and hesitation in pronunciation. On the basis of the findings it is suggested that the old approach of ELT through Grammar translation method (GTM) should be replaced by new communicative approaches. The teacher centered classroom should be replaced with the learner centered classroom where the teacher should emphasize the pronunciation and more opportunities should be given to students for speaking English. The research will help the policy makers, teachers as well as learners of English as a second language (ESL) to focus on the suggestions to improve the prevalent situation of English speaking scenario in Pakistan.