PHILOSOPHICAL CHAIRS TO DEVELOP EGYPTIAN EFL STUDENTS' SPEAKING SKILLS

The present study investigated the impact of the philosophical chairs strategy on Egyptian EFL students’ speaking skills. Participants were 47 EFL students at Faculty of Education, Suez University. They were divided into a control group and an experimental group. All participants were pretested on speaking skills before the experiment and then posttested after it. For 12 weeks, participants in the control group received their regular instruction while those in the experimental group participated in weekly philosophical chairs sessions where they discussed controversial topics that they had to agree, disagree, or be neutral about. Each participant defended his/her point of view in order to persuade others to move to his/her side. Moreover, he/she could move to another side at any time. Finally, participants reflected on their participation in the discussion. While the statistical analysis revealed no significant improvement in the control group's speaking skills between the pretest and the posttest, it revealed a significant improvement in speaking skills for the experimental group between the pretest and the posttest in favor of the posttest. It was recommended that philosophical chairs be used for developing EFL learners’ speaking skills.