Improving Students’ Speaking Skills Through Task-Based Learning: An ActionResearch At the English Departmen

This study aims to improve students' speaking skills at the department of english. based oninterviews carried out to get initial data on the students' speaking skills, it was shown that the students hadproblems in speaking due to inadequate knowledge of the language which in turn made the students feltunconfident to speak. the students were not familiar with various speaking activities facilitating them tospeak. they read text to convey ideas and a lack of strategies when speaking. to help the students, taskbasedlearning was adapted through an action research in one-semester courses. fifteen students in thethird semester participated in this study. the data were taken from the results of the pre-test to post-test,interview, and observation. the findings reveal that the use of task-based learning helps the studentsimprove their speaking skills of three indicators assessed: accuracy, vocabulary, and comprehension. thestudents manage to complete the tasks by conducting various activities through three phases of learning:the pre-task, task-cycle, and form focus. they succeed in improving their speaking skills and gaining theirconfidence. the students can evaluate their learning in pairs and group works.