American Journal Of Social Sciences And Humanity Research
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VOLUME
Vol.05 Issue08 2025
PAGE NO.
40-42
10.37547/ajsshr/Volume05Issue08-09
24
A Task-Based Approach to Speaking and Listening Skill
Development: Improving Communicative Proficiency in
Intermediate-Level EFL Students
Maftunabonu Nasriddinova
EFL and ESL teacher, Uzbekistan
Received:
18 June 2025;
Accepted:
14 July 2025;
Published:
16 August 2025
Abstract:
Learning foreign languages has become more and more important for young people who want to study
or work elsewhere in today's globalized society. This article examines useful speaking and listening tasks created
for a group of English language learners at the intermediate (B1 level). The study emphasizes two linked tasks: a
map-based activity to improve listening comprehension and a visual description task to improve speaking fluency.
Learners are encouraged to increase their descriptive vocabulary, enhance their accuracy and fluency, and
develop strategic listening skills through organized group projects and simulations of real-world situations. The
findings show that both activities are pedagogically appropriate for the learners' level and considerably contribute
to their productive skill development, as indicated by academic literature and CEFR recommendations.
Keywords
: Productive skills, speaking task, listening comprehension, real-life communication, EFL learners, B1
level, task-based learning, CEFR, young learners, group work, vocabulary development, fluency, pronunciation,
ESL pedagogy.
Introduction:
Learning new languages becomes crucial
part of young generation’s life in our era as it opens the
door of new chances everywhere. Especially English
language is expanding and becoming essential
language and a basic means of communication in
foreign countries for the people whose first language is
not English. The group that I have to teach consists of
10 students. they are 14 years old and study in the 8th
grade of secondary school. Their English language
proficiency is intermediate (B1). My students are
independent users of the target language and can
understand speeches on familiar situations such as
work, travel, leisure, school and others. They can
communicate on a daily basis and many topics related
to daily situations and describe dreams, hopes,
ambitions, events and experiences, their backgrounds
and give reasons and explanations of the plans as well
as opinions. My learners are also able to read
newspapers, simple textbooks, assignments and their
explanations (Using the CEFR: Principles of good
practice, 2011). My students have been learning
English language since the 5th grades. They are learning
language for educational purposes as well as
preparation for IELTS examination. They have to
improve their knowledge and level from B1 to B2, C1
and take higher scores in CEFR and IELTS exams. Their
main aim from leaning language is to improve their
language proficiency, become fluent and study abroad
after finishing the school.
My students are able to support their ideas with
relevant examples and generate multiple questions to
keep conversation, match 2 speakers’ speeches and
identify the main meaning, compare and contrast
ideas, plans and information, understand daily
announcements, reports and statements in a limited
degree. My learners can understand texts with high-
frequency vocabulary. However, they face difficulties
with low-frequency words. Moreover, students have
problems related to intonation, pronunciation of some
words, fluency in speaking and vocabulary range is
limited. My students are able to find main ideas and
details from passages, identify the topics, connect
people to actions based on oral descriptions in a
detailed way. They can find relationship between main
American Journal Of Social Sciences And Humanity Research
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American Journal Of Social Sciences And Humanity Research (ISSN: 2771-2141)
opinions and details in paragraphs, identify reasons for
claims and opposite points of view. They also can
produce short paragraphs with essential ideas and
some details, write dialogues based on personal
experiences, provide feedbacks with acceptable
explanations and examples and support their ideas
with
relevant
samples
(https://wida.wisc.edu/sites/default/files/resource/Ca
nDo-KeyUses-Gr-6-8.pdf). They need an improvement
in speaking and listening skills as these skills are weak
points of my students and also in writing, reading skills.
Moreover, my students have good grammar
knowledge.
Task 1-Speaking activity (describing a picture)-
pronunciation- Communicative language teaching
(CLT)
1.In the class, the teacher divides students into mini
groups that consist of 4 or 5 students. each group is
given the same picture that shows several destinations
such as shops, parks, restaurants, gardens and others
within one area or city.
2.Students should describe each place briefly and using
various adjectives and grammar structures. The
teacher explains the rules of this activity to the
students briefly. [ L]
3. The teacher sets a time limit for groups to get
preparation (5 minutes). Firstly, students have a look at
the picture and may take some notes for themselves if
it is needed. [W]
4. The teacher observe every group in order to check
whether they are using only English language or their
native language. it must be noted that students must
use only English language even during the preparation
time within their small group. [S, W]
5. After the time is over, students need to describe
where the places are located and how they look with
much details one by one. They can use various types of
verb tenses. They have to produce original and
expanded work. [S, V, P, F]
6. Each member of the group has to speak and a
presentation must take maximum 4 minutes. [S, V, P]
7. The teacher encourages students to use various
descriptive vocabulary, for example, color, shape size,
position of the places and pays more attention to the
fl
uency
and
accuracy
of
students’
speech,
pronunciation of the words and correct their mistakes
if it is needed. [S, V, P]
8. After all students finish their presentation, students
must compare their own work with the work of the
opposite group. It helps to identify similarities and
learn new vocabulary and way of describing. [L, V]
9. All students and the teacher discuss what was
challenging about describing the picture and strategies
they used to do this task. [L, S, D]
The task that I chose belongs to real-life tasks category.
It teaches to demonstrate streets ways and locations. I
used it for pedagogical purposes. Describing a picture
is appropriate for my target learners’ level. Because my
students are good at describing real-life situations and
this task seeks to expand the knowledge within this
area by making it impressive. They have enough
vocabulary in this topic and skills to do this task
(Bassano, 2013). This is because, my students do not
face difficulties while doing this activity. The objective
of this task is to make students more fluent, confident,
enhance vocabulary range and explanation strategies.
Describing something is one narrative that helps to
enhance speaking skills, especially in intermediate level
(Levis & Grant, 2011). Another key feature of this task
is to compare and contrast other students’ opinions
and ideas. Jenkins (2000) states that the ability to note
important features in spoken discourse is essential to
intelligibility of the speech. Students can also learn
many new strategies and words as well as phrases by
listening other group members’ speech in this task. One
more aim here is that students can be aware of their
needs in speaking (Basturkmen, 2011).
Task 2- listening -Audio-lingual method (ALM)
1.
First of all, students are given a map which
includes some streets but without the name of these
streets. [C]
2.
In this task, students must place each street on
the map according to the teacher's definitions and
instructions. [L, W]
3.
The teacher tells instructions twice as it helps
students to identify the facts clearly. [L, C]
4.
At the end of the task, teacher show the
answers and students check their work. [R]
5.
Students tell the teacher where they made
mistakes. By doing this, the teacher will be able to
evaluate her
students’ strengths and weaknesses in
listening. Students also can learn many new words by
listening to the teacher’s definitions [S, V, D]
6.
Listening task is one that most EFL students
sometimes find it difficult to achieve. It requires
students to be comprehensible while listening and
understand the meaning of the audio. Boyer (1987)
states that to be successful in academic settings,
students have to gain comprehensive listening skill.
Listening is vital as students should share massages and
receive
them, use other instructors’ examples to teach
or inform their peers. Listening is needed in every field
such as education, music, philosophy, psychology,
nursing and others (Thompson, 2004). In the listening
American Journal Of Social Sciences And Humanity Research
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American Journal Of Social Sciences And Humanity Research (ISSN: 2771-2141)
task, students have to distinguish sounds in words,
concluding meaning of some words which students are
not familiar with, predict content of the text, write
down or remember contradictions and ambiguities and
most importantly recognize what is fact and what is
opinion of the speaker. These things help listeners to
understand what they are listening and complete the
tasks successfully. The task which I chose is really
helpful to put these subskills into practice.
REFERENCES
Bassano, Sh. (2013). Helping ESL students remember to
speak English during group work. TESOL Journal. 12(1).
Wiley.
Basturkmen, H. (2011). Learner observation of, and
reflection on, spoken discourse: an approach for
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Burns, A. (1998). Teaching speaking. Annual review of
Applied Linguistics. 18, 102-123. Cambridge University
press.
Eskey, D.E. (2011). Reading and the Teaching of L2
Reading. TESOL Journal. 11(1) TESOL International
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Levis, J.M. & Grant, L. (2011). Integrating pronunciation
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Lutfillina, G. A. & Tursinova, Z. Sh. (2018). Smart topics
in English. Tashkent. Spectrum Media Group.
Palmer, E. (2014). Teaching the core skills of listening
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