The Effect Of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) Strategy On Improving Speaking Skills Of EFL Learners

Speaking is an essential skill in learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL); however, many learners still experience difficulties in expressing their ideas orally due to limited vocabulary, grammatical difficulties, pronunciation problems, lack of fluency, and limited confidence. Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) provides learners with opportunities to use English actively through meaningful and communicative tasks. This study aimed to examine the improvement of EFL learners’ speaking skills, particularly in terms of fluency, accuracy, pronunciation, vocabulary, and comprehension, following the implementation of TBLT. This study employed a quantitative pre-experimental method with a one-group pre-test–post-test design. The participants consisted of 32 students of Class XII MIPA V at MAS Ruhul Islam Anak Bangsa. The treatment was conducted in six instructional meetings over approximately four weeks. Data were collected through speaking pre-test and post-test assessments and analyzed using descriptive statistics, the Shapiro–Wilk normality test, a paired-samples t-test, and N-Gain analysis. The findings revealed that the students’ mean speaking score increased from 10.75 in the pre-test to 14.69 in the post-test, with a mean improvement of approximately 3.94 points. Improvement was also found across all five speaking components. Pronunciation showed the largest improvement, increasing from 2.16 to 3.06, followed by fluency, which increased from 2.16 to 3.00. Accuracy increased from 2.09 to 2.88, vocabulary from 2.38 to 3.09, and comprehension from 1.94 to 2.66. The Shapiro–Wilk test indicated that the difference scores were normally distributed (W = .944, p = .095). Furthermore, the paired-samples t-test revealed a statistically significant difference between the students’ pre-test and post-test speaking performance, t(31) = 14.628, p < .001. The N-Gain score was 0.426, indicating a moderate level of normalized improvement. These findings demonstrate that the students achieved significantly higher speaking performance following the implementation of TBLT, with improvement occurring across all five speaking components. Nevertheless, because this study employed a one-group pre-experimental design without a control group, the improvement should be interpreted as an observed change following TBLT implementation rather than definitive evidence that TBLT was the sole cause of the improvement.