Fostering Saudi EFL Learners’ Communicative, Collaborative and Critical Thinking Skills Through the Technique of In-Class Debate

Abstract

Diverse learning styles of the learners require instructors to utilize wide variety of instructional strategies to engage their interest and motivation. In-class debate is a systematic instructional strategy utilized to bring the dynamics of social life into the classroom to cultivate learners’ active-involvement in the content of the subject. It hones learners’ range of skills, such as; oral-communication, social-interaction, critical thinking skills and internalization of the course content. For the purposes of present study, the researcher utilized qualitative cum quantitative research tools to collect the data from the participants. An opinionnaire with 14 items was developed with closed ended questions. The instrument was designed to measure four variables, which are tabulated into four sections (See tables 3-6): (a) in-class debate inculcates learners’ collaborative, communicative and cooperative paradigms;(b) it triggers learners’ complete mastery of the course content, i.e., retention, assimilation and understanding, coupled with boosts stack of skills involved in the process; (c) it fosters EFL learners’ ability to critically evaluate and analyze everything; and (d) finally it focuses on learners’ creative and critical thinking skills and make them active and independent pursuers of knowledge. The survey was administered to 87 female EFL learners of Taif University to identify the impacts of debate on their range of academic skills. The findings of the study indicate that in-class debate effectively generates learners’ several skills since it targets their thinking skill, contemplation, reflection and ultimately stimulates their productive, receptive, analytical and critical thinking skills. Yet, more faculties can be activated and maximum results can be obtained, if this interactive strategy is implemented in a structured format with a properly designed rubric focusing on learners’ specific skills.

Affording Vietnamese EFL Students’ Critical Thinking in Video-Translation Tasks

“…These original ideas produced by students show that they could think and reason with given facts and concepts in some way, transferring and transforming what they learned, and their understanding grew. This, therefore, transparently confirms past research results regarding the great possibility of creating course task-based opportunities in various ways by teachers for EFL students to deploy and improve CT, including self-regulation (Dörnyei, 2005;Gunawardena et al, 2017;Fahmeeda, 2020;Majidi et al, 2021;Ouhiba, 2022;Qin & Karabacak, 2010;Sakae, 2022;Sumarni & Kadarwati, 2020;Yang et al, 2013;and others). Furthermore, given the utility of translanguaging necessitated in this coursework operation (i.e., translating spoken English video input into Vietnamese equivalent output, followed by producing reflections in written English form), the present study also agreed with previous research on the helpful involvement of translanguaging because students highly likely employ a full range of language skill repertoire and knowledge of cultural frames from both L2 and L1 experience in performing tasks given (Baker 2011;Cenoz & Gorter, 2022;Garcia, 2009;Treffers-Daller et al, 2020;Wei, 2011;Yüzlü & Dikilitaş, 2022a), especially when the ability to decently transcend between the two working languages at hand is primed in bilingual communication and EFL translation courses like one in the present study.…”

“…In second language (L2) education and EFL instruction particularly, the existing literature has documented research involving different instructional tasks to deliberately support learners' critical thinking (CT) development along with target language acquisition. For instance, literary texts were used to boost CT for first-year EFL students in Algeria (Ouhiba, 2022), the projectbased approach was applied to stimulate EFL majors' creative, critical thinking, and interactional skills (Sakae, 2022), English listening and speaking were practiced to enhance CT (Yang et al, 2013), in-class debates (Fahmeeda, 2020;Majidi, Janssen, & Graaff, 2021), and English writing skills (Behdani & Rashtchi, 2019;Qin & Karabacak, 2010) were also deployed to foster this type of thinking for argumentation, while Gunawardena, Sooriyampola, and Walisundara (2017) used textbook reading activities to raise EFL learners' thinking skills. These pertinent studies confirmed the positive outcomes in enhancing learners' CT and called for further research in the field.…”

Examining the effect of a collaborative learning intervention on EFL students English learning and social interaction

“…Besides, the qualitative findings of the current study concur with Hung (2019), whose research suggested that EFL instructors using cooperative learning should take on a crucial role as facilitators and advisors to assist students in resolving issues emerging from assignments and socialization. Furthermore, the results of the current study's analysis are consistent with those of Gulnaz (2020), who found that classroom debate effectively develops a variety of skills including collaboration, critical thinking, reflection and contemplation, which in turn develop students' productive, receptive, and analytical, skills. Additionally, the results of the qualitative analysis are consistent with those of Rojas and Villafuerte (2018), who found that role play, as an instructional strategy, gives students exposure to real-world scenarios in order to improve their capacity for meaningful and natural peer-to-peer communication about events related to their everyday lives and future careers.…”

An Empirical Investigation of the EFL Learners Attitudes Toward the Effectiveness of Cooperative Learning

“…Modern CL has taken its roots in the academic settings since the mid of 1960s (Johnson & Johnson, 1999). Gulnaz (2020) has stated that “collaborative learning is an umbrella term for a variety of instructional strategies, such as pair work, group work, role plays, debates and discussions utilized to initiate interaction among the learners” (p. 268). The findings of several studies discuss its effectiveness in the language classroom (Kyndt et al, 2013; Laal & Ghodsi, 2012).…”