DEVELOPING STUDENTS' SPEAKING SKILLS THROUGH INTERACTIVE TIKTOK LIVE AT SMP MUHAMMADIYAH 1 PADANGRATU, CENTRAL LAMPUNG, LAMPUNG PROVINCE

ABSTRACT
Traditional EFL speaking instruction often fails to engage digital-native students, leading to high anxiety and low willingness to communicate. While asynchronous TikTok is widely researched, its synchronous feature, Interactive TikTok Live, remains critically underexplored. This study aims to investigate the process of developing ninth-grade students' speaking skills through Interactive TikTok Live, alongside the specific opportunities and challenges encountered. Employing a qualitative descriptive case study design, the research involved eight purposively selected ninth-grade students at SMP Muhammadiyah 1 Padangratu, a rural school in Central Lampung. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, non-participant observations across five sequential live sessions, and reflective journals, then analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings reveal a significant developmental trajectory from script-dependent hesitation to spontaneous, text-independent communication, driven by a lowered affective filter and reduced Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety (FLSA). Pedagogical opportunities include enhanced intrinsic motivation, real-time Vygotskian peer scaffolding via live chat, and multimodal support for lexical retrieval. However, students faced distinct challenges, including rural infrastructural barriers (unstable internet, lag), high cognitive load during spontaneous lexical retrieval, and initial performance anxiety. The study concludes that Interactive TikTok Live serves as a powerful pedagogical ecosystem that bridges informal digital literacy with formal EFL learning, fostering authentic communicative competence when technical and psychological scaffolds are adequately managed by the educator.