Task-Based Learning Technique: a Strategy to Enhance Students’ Speaking Skills at ESP Context

Abstract

Speaking skills are very important. Through mastering these skills, a student is able to communicate
his ideas, feelings, and emotions easily. Besides, nowadays, almost all job requirements put a strong
emphasis on the speaking skills’ mastery to its candidates. However, the students seemed to have
low motivation in learning it, especially students taking English for Specific Purpose (ESP), such as
English for Front Office. Many factores contributed to this phenomenon. One of them was the
learning atmosphere and the learning activities. When they were not enjoyable in their learning and
they were not given opportunities to practice their language, their learning achievement would
become low. When it remained all the time, they could not achieve the learning goal very well.
Therefore, they needed to be helped. One strategy that could be done was by implementing a
technique which could arouse their motivation. That strategy was task-based learning technique. It
provides the learners with an enjoyable learning environment and gives students a lot of chances to
practice their speaking. Thus, it can develop to establishing students’ communicative competence
and provides them a bridge to reach the intended communicative goal. This paper aims at
illustrating how the task-based learning is employed in an ESP classroomto enhance
students’speaking skills at ESP context.