British Journal of English Linguistics Vol.8, No.2, pp.113-130 April 2020 Published by ECRTD-UK Print ISSN: 2055-6063(Print), 6071(Online) - Online ISSN: 2055 113 TEACHING SPEAKING SKILL TO EFL COLLEGE STUDENTS THROUGH TASK- BASED APPROACH: PROBLEMS AND IMPROVEMENT Nasser Omer M. Al-Tamimi Department of English- College of Education Seiyun University, Yemen tnotamimi@yahoo.com Nabil Khadher Muhsen Abudllah Department of English-College of Education, Zingibar Abyan University, Yemen nalsomaiti@gmail.com Wagdi Rashad Ali Bin-Hady Department of English - College of Education, Socotra Hadhramout University, Yemen wagdyrashad@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4116-113X ABSTARCT: This study aimed at exploring Yemeni EFL students' perceived problems of speaking and enhancing their speaking performance using task-based instruction strategy. It followed a quasi-experimental research design to check the degree of enhancement in the students' speaking skills, and a qualitative design to check students' problems in speaking. To ensure effective use of strategic teaching, the researchers considered students' needs and motivation by involving them in an interview about the problems they face when communicating in English. Non-probabilistic convenience sampling was used in the present study. The sample consisted of 20 first-year college students at Socotra Faculty of Education, Hadhramout University, Yemen, in the academic year of 2018-2019. The findings revealed that students face many speaking problems pertaining to knowledge of phonology, vocabulary, grammar and problems of sustaining the oral interaction, as well as psychology -related problems. The analysis of data collected, using paired sample t-test, indicates a significant improvement has taken place in students' speaking skill compared to the pre-test and the post-test performance with t-value of 5.349 and p. value =.000,<. 0.005, with effect size of (ES = .53). Based on the findings, the study recommends that EFL teachers focus on the problems reported by students whenever they want to develop their students' communicative competence. KEYWORDS: communicative competence, EFL learners, learners' expectations, speaking problems, task-based instruction, teaching speaking INTRODUCTION "I hate make a fool of myself" is a sentence that, at Yemeni universities, students usually utter whenever they are asked "why don’t you like to have a role in a conversation?" This perception is likely to prevent the students from mastering the ability to speak the foreign language properly,