An Investigation of Students’ Perceptions towards the Impact of Debate in Enhancing the Speaking Skill

Abstract

This research attempts to investigate the effects of classroom debate in developing EFL students’ speaking skill. Therefore, teachers are required to help students to boost their speaking skill and choose the appropriate strategies and tools to achieve this objective. This research tends mainly to explore both teachers’ and students’ attitudes toward the use of classroom debate to enhance speaking. Also, it is mainly concerned with making use of debates in oral English courses to improve learners’ speaking skill. To investigate this issue, two questionnaires were administered to sixty second year LMD students and six teachers of oral expression at Mohamed Seddik Ben Yahia University -Jijel- , a descriptive method has been adopted in order to gather data. The analysis has partially answered the research questions and led to a relative embracing of our assumption. It was found that classroom debate is a useful technique for enhancing students’ speaking skill. On the basis of this result, it is recommended that teachers role is needed in this case