Impacts of debate instruction on students’ critical thinking skills in College EFL Classes: an empirical investigation

Abstract

In view of the absence of critical thinking skills of college students, this research is aimed at implementing the debate instruction based on Paul-Elder Model in College English teaching for the improvement of college students’ critical thinking skills, and tests its effectiveness through a semester’s experiment. The results show that the implementation of debate instruction in College English teaching can significantly improve college students’ critical thinking skills, and the debate instruction based on Paul-Elder Model contribute to the whole dimensions of students’ critical skills, including clarity, precision, accuracy, significance, relevance, completeness, logicalness, fairness, breadth and depth.