Enhancing Learners’ Oral Fluency and Self-Esteem in Using English Through TBLT Approach at the Universitas Negeri Padang

Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) has been recognized and claimed as one of the best approaches to develop learners’ oral fluency in the English language classroom. Richard Frost, Nunan (1989:10), Ellis (2003), Long (2015), Willis & Willis (2007) have pointed out many benefits of using TBLT approach in English language classroom to foster learners’ oral fluency skills. This research seeks to answer the question: in what way does the TBLT approach develop learners’ oral fluency and promote self-esteem in using English? Learners seem to have a problem in order to develop oral fluency and self- esteem due to a few communicative activities, lack of exposure to the English language use and limited supportive environment in their English language classroom. Therefore, the researcher attempted to solve those problems by enriching learners’ interaction, fostering learners’ agency, establishing a rapport and providing repetition tasks in a meaningful way. The participants of this research were Non-English major students with a limited number of total students 20 from a variety of faculties at the Universitas Negeri Padang (UNP), Indonesia, and therefore cannot represent the whole figure of the students of UNP. The students’ oral fluency development was accessed through the IELTS speaking format with a trained IELTS examiner as an inter- rater for the reliability of the score and the researcher himself. On the other hand, learners’ self-esteem was accessed through questionnaires which are validated by the expert before delivering to the students. Moreover, in order to receive in-depth information of this research process, the researcher employed field note, observation checklists and interview guidelines was also used at the end of the research. The findings demonstrated that learners’ oral fluency and self-esteem was enhanced through TBLT approach in a way of providing interactive activities, fostering learners’ agency, establishing rapport and selecting the topics thoroughly in order to engage with the learners and providing the repetition tasks in a meaningful way. The research concluded that learners’ oral fluency was enhanced and self-esteem was fostered with the TBLT approach and therefore, the TBLT is highly recommended to implement in higher education of English language classroom such as ESP classes, provided that teachers should be trained before implementing in their own classroom so that learners could be equipped with more effective ways for their journey of language development and building better self-esteem in using English.