INVESTIGATING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS OF SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS THROUGH DEBATE IN EFL CLASSROOM

Abstract

Critical thinking is considered a comprehensive cognitive skill in problem solving and argumentation that needs to be possessed by students in the twenty-first century. This study mainly aims at investigating a teacher’s way of employing debate activities as an effective way to promote students’ critical thinking ability in EFL classroom, the type of CT skills manifested through the debating activity, and students’ perceptions toward the implementation of debate activities as a technique that can help them to think critically. The data were obtained through semi-interviews, classroom observations, and documents. One English teacher and the total of 12 students of high and low achievers in speaking performance were involved. The results revealed that Parliamentary Debate system employed happened to be exceptionally helpful to EFL teachers who intend to promote students’ critical thinking ability as students are constantly trained to construct arguments and strengthen their claim. However, the students admitted that having limited experience in debate practice is a major obstacle. Thus, more lessons and practices in constructing a good argument are needed. Furthermore, the quality of argumentation constructed by learners should be evaluated to prevent students from fallacies.