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The importance of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in providing practically appropriate English integrated with the needs of specific departments in higher education has proven its urgency. In Indonesian context, ESP practices is conducted for the non-English freshmen that challenges the EFL teachers to foster students’ engagement with efficient teaching strategies. Therefore, this qualitative research with case study design was conducted to explore the challenges and strategies of the EFL teachers for engaging the ESP students in classrooms. Involving in-depth interviews and a questionnaire participated by EFL instructors of ESP program in Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM), the data were obtained. Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis was used as data analysis along with the frameworks of students’ engagement challenges by Fredrick et al. (2004) and strategies for engaging students in higher education by Barkley (2010). The findings reveal that the teachers experience the behavioral, cognitive, and emotional challenges in engaging the students. As the coping mechanism, they implement active and collaborative learning, foster students’ motivation, scaffolding talks and emphasize the optimization of the use of ICT and LMS provided by the institution. The further dimension of the ICT and LMS optimization and the amelioration of the ESP practice are discussed.

challenges and strategies; English for Specific Purpose; ESP in higher education; learning management system; student engagement