Using Debates in Critical Thinking Skills Development

The high computerization level and the spread of easily accessible media sources resulted into a growing concern for critical thinking skills development. The students need to be prepared for analysing information they get, including unproved and falsified facts, subjective personal opinions and advertising. Debate is a multipurpose pedagogical technique encouraging the students to participate in a formalised argumentative discussion. Debate participants need to prove their position by referring to facts and scientific knowledge while being attentive and polite to their opponents. This study analyses the use of debate as a means of critical thinking skills development in teaching a foreign language in senior classes of secondary school. The practical use of debate technique is analysed on the base of “Higher School of Debate” club sessions. The pedagogical experiment was conducted with the purpose to check the correlation between debate participation and critical thinking skills development. The results of current study can be further used in developing educational courses and materials.