Handan Çelik, Nalan Bayraktar Balkır

Debate as a Pedagogical Tool for Verbal Communication Skills at the Tertiary Level: Does it Offer More?

Debate as a Pedagogical Tool for Verbal Communication Skills at the Tertiary Level: Does it Offer More?

Handan Çelik, Trabzon University/Fatih Faculty of Education, Türkiye,

Nalan Bayraktar Balkır, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University/ School of Foreign Languages, Türkiye,

Debate has long been regarded as a teaching strategy to promote critical thinking and collaborative learning (Brown, 2015; Oros, 2007). Scholars regard debate as a teaching technique promoting higher order thinking skills (Dipta et al., 2023). However, lack of research on debate activities at tertiary level is also emphasized (O’Neill, 2024). Therefore, in the current study we employed debate as a pedagogical practice. Students (N=35) studying at the English language teaching program at a state university in Türkiye worked in groups of five to six and debated with against each other in Verbal Communication Skills course for six weeks around such topics of social issues as emergency and first aid during earthquakes, climate change, environmental catastrophes, fires, and deforestation, and gender equality/inequality. The students were required to read two to three background texts and watch video clips on the topic to stimulate their interest, activate their knowledge and acquire relevant knowledge. This also aimed at enabling them to mind map to review the ideas and sub-ideas of all the texts and videos. Volunteers as camera operators recorded the debating teams’ performance. The debating teams were later asked to watch the video of their debates and reflect on it individually around such aspects as their verbal and non-verbal communication skills, group cooperation skills, and linguistic skills to argue for and against the debate topic. They were also asked to evaluate what enabled them to get stronger in their verbal and non-verbal communication skills. The results showed that the students considered that they worked and cooperated very well, kept improving despite such problems with tone, pace, eye contact, or gestures in the first few debates. Later reflections revealed that the students become more critical of their debate performance in terms of adequate and effective participation, speech confidence, and the role of adequate preparation.  

Keywords: classroom pedagogy, communication skills, debate, English language learners, group cooperation. 

References  

Brown, Z. (2015). The use of in-class debates as a teaching strategy in increasing students’ critical thinking and collaborative learning skills in higher education. e-Journal of the British Education Studies Association, 7(1), 39-55.  

Dipta, D., Haikal, M., Nuraini, E. I. Virgiyanti, D. F., Fachriza, A., Mahastu, P. J., & Ramadhani, A. (2023). Debating as a systematic teaching technique to promote HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills). English Teaching Journal: A Journal of English Literature, Linguistics, and Education, 11(2), 82-88.  

O’Neill, L. D. (2024). Assessment of student debates in support of active learning? Students’ perceptions of a debate-based oral final exam. Active Learning in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/14697874241245665  

Oros, A. L. (2007). Let’s debate: active learning encourages student participation and critical thinking. Journal of Political Science Education, 3(3), 293-311. https://doi.org/10.1080/15512160701558273  

Handan ÇELİK is an Assistant Professor at the English Language Teaching Programme, Department of Foreign Languages Teaching, Fatih Faculty of Education, Trabzon University, Türkiye. Teaching practicum, Linguistics, Language Assessment, and Course Design in ELT are some of the courses she has taught regularly in recent years at the undergraduate level. Her current research interests include pre- and in-service English language teachers’ education, English for Academic and Specific Purposes, and teaching practicum in language teacher education. 

Nalan BAYRAKTAR BALKIR is an Assistant Professor at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, School of Foreign Languages, with over 20 years of experience. Specializing in English for Academic Purposes (EAP), she has taught courses such as Research Methods, English Vocabulary, Sociolinguistics, and School Practice at the undergraduate level. Her research interests include the psychology of language learning and teaching, global education, second language acquisition, and educational technologies.