Motivation plays an important role to improve English speaking skills. In learning English motivation serves as one of the things that determine the success of students in learning. Having learning motivation, students in the English Language Education Department (ELED) find it easier to learn speaking skills. This research aimed to investigate the students’ motivation to improve their English speaking skills. In addition, the study is conducted to find out how the students’ motivate themselves to improve their speaking skills. Descriptive qualitative design was applied in this research in which the data were collected from four participants. The participants were one male student and three female students of English Language Education batch 2016 at an Islamic private university in Yogyakarta. Based on the interview, the findings showed that there were four students motivation to improve speaking skills revealed by the participants. These motivations include wanting to speaking fluently, feeling shame, afraid to be laughed at, wanting to get good grades, and fulfilling job requirement in the future. After that, the data collected from the interviews also revealed that all participants admitted that they had several ways to motivate themselves to improve their English speaking skills. These include sharing with others, learning with friends, and thinking positively.