This study aims to explore ways of enhancing EFL students’ oral skills using task-based language teaching (TBLT) through telling short stories in a classroom environment in Taichung, Taiwan. For this study, 54 students were enrolled in an EFL course titled “English Oral Communication” and “English for leisure and culture” from the Fall semester of 2022 to the Spring semester 2023. All the participants were required to tell a short story according to a set of pictures that the teacher-researcher gave them. To do so, the researcher randomly but not evenly assigned the participants into two different teaching methods. One teaching method, the planning group, allowed students to prepare their short story for 10 minutes. The second teaching method, the no planning group, required students to tell their short story immediately without prior preparation.