The university teaching and learning of Journalism and Communication in Ethiopia offers many challenges equally both for the teachers and students. One of the challenges is that the undergraduates usually face language difficulties in an English-medium setting. Task based instruction (TBI) as a panacea refers to an approach based on the use of tasks as the core unit of planning and instruction in the teaching learning process. This article critically reviews the fuzzy concept of ‘task’ and how it is different from ‘activities’; the evolution of TBI as an approach; how the objectives are formulated in task based approach; how sequencing and grading of syllabus content is organized in the task format; what is the modus operandi of teachers and learners in task based instruction; which varieties of instructional materials are required to run the show of task-based classroom; and how the learners’ performance and syllabus itself will pass through the process of evaluation. At the end, the article attempts to propose advantages, disadvantages and challenges of TBI for the curriculum/syllabus developers.