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
