The effects of in-class debates on argumentation skills in second language education

Abstract The skill of argumentation in the second language (L2) is problematic for secondary school students who are deficient in expressing structurally and qualitatively appropriate arguments. Debate has been widely acclaimed as an effective pedagogical tool that can improve L2 argumentation skills of students. However, the existing evidence is anecdotal. This intervention study, which employed a pretest-posttest control group design involving eight classes at three secondary schools in The Netherlands, was conducted to investigate to what extent debate instruction in L2 manages to affect a number of L2 structural (e.g. sub-arguments and rebuttals) and quality (e.g. elaboration and persuasiveness of arguments) aspects of argumentation. To gauge the effect of the intervention, we analyzed written and oral opinion tasks produced by the participants at the beginning and towards the end of the intervention. We used an adjusted Toulmin model of argumentation to undertake the structural analysis, and a 5-point scale rubric to assess different aspects of reasoning quality. Multilevel analysis of the data revealed that debate instruction had a positive effect upon a number of structural components and quality aspects of the written and oral argumentation skills. These findings led us to conclude that debate constitutes a conducive pedagogy for honing argumentation skills.