Speech is an important and effective communication method which man needs to realize his social life. This form of communication has become increasingly important with each passing day in regulating his relationships with people through the ages, people’s interaction, forming a nation and all sorts of interaction with other nations. Today, this importance has increased considerably by the spread of mass media because of advanced technology.

While Özbay (2003) explains the communicative method regulating interpersonal interactions as indivi-duals and verbal communication that occurs between the individual and society, Güne? (2000, p. 95) defines the same concept as a process that starts in the mind and completed by verbalizing thoughts. In a Turkish dictionary (Do?an, 2011, p.1057), speech is defined as “in the presence of the audience, a person says a word and his/her thoughts and verbalizing what he/she desires to  say”. The Turkish Language Association also defines  speech as “explaining the idea by the words of any language, mentioning a particular topic, speaking mutual on a subject, to chat, to discourse, use as a spoken language, to explain the thought of using any tools, to say in a certain way. Such a definition demonstrates that the concept “speech” is quite comprehensive and it consists of complicated processes like sound, pronunciation, com-munication, expression, agreement and understanding (Ceran, 2012, p. 339).

It is considered as a social being, man most commonly uses “talk” as the method of communication after “listening” (Buzan, 2001, p. 97; Maxwell and Dornan, 2001, p. 106; Nal?nc?, 200, p.130). While it is considered that realization of listening depends upon speech, it will be understood that in everyday communication speech is much more important (Ceran, 2012). However, conduct-ed researches demonstrate that listening and speech, which are the first learned language skills of individuals in order to meet their needs, are acknowledged as the skills learned by the community and so, there is not enough focus on the training of the basic language skills (Tompkins, 1998).

Whereas especially speaking skill is an important skill that must be improved in regular education in terms of students’ ability for communicating with their environment, making cooperation, joint decision-making and for the purpose of solving the problems they face (Özbay, 2013, p.101). Improving the language skills of individuals with the planned education is a need to be successful in social life.

Without agreement between people, feelings, thoughts, sharing common ideas, it cannot be considered the continuation of individual and community life (Temizkan, 2009). For such a learning space, systematic approach must be developed by regular training. It is a requirement for the success of the individual and society.

By the regulations which were made in order to meet the needs, the development of speaking skills has been considered in Turkish Curriculum of Ministry of Education (2005); for students, the goals like “Beholding the Turkish aesthetic pleasure and express themselves correctly and comfortable advantage of the rich vocabulary, can solve the problems faced by speaking in social life, so they can evaluate and interpret”. For this reason, the program contains certain activities that aim at developing students’ speaking skills, presenting their ideas logically and in all, making comparisons, to establish cause-effect relation-ships, classification, evaluation, summarizing, mental activities which constitute the starting point of the conversation, such as reaching a conclusion.

Indeed speech is one of the important factors that determine people’s success or failure in education and working life. In this sense speech can be considered as a process of sharing education and business and social life experience between individuals (Temizyürek, 2007). Since it is a skill area encompassing all aspects of life, speech and its education is necessary for both mother-language course and other courses and also people to have effective and communicative skills for life.

Understanding and practice of education that is individual oriented and planned certainly looking to develop speaking skills is required for eliminating speech defects of individuals and anxiety concerning speaking before people and community.

Carnegie (1998, p.11) mentions the concerns that many of us live but refrain from expressing as follows: “When prompted me to stand up and speak, because of such a fear that surrounds me, I cannot clearly think, cannot collect my attention, I will not remember what I wanted to say. I want to win the confidence of myself and get my balance and think of myself and say my thoughts clearly and in a convincing manner in front of business or community of friends.” The elimination of concerns and fear and anxiety individuals have will only be possible with a regular training process using effective methods and techniques. Then, speech is a language skill that can be developed and lifelong education for the development of these skills is a social necessity to continue for successfully educating people to be able to build a successful society. “Know how much you know, it is up to the people to understand.” Rumi’s ideas summarize these requirements.

Dealing and evaluation of speech training activities with physiological, psychological and social dimensions is necessary for testing the efficiency of the speech training process and to get the changes needed (Temizyürek et al., 2012). Ignoring one of the dimensions adversely affects level of realization and evaluation of the skill having multidimensional and complex features. In the evaluation process for the speaking skills, features like the content of the speech (Douglas and Mayer, 2000), grammar of the application, selection and use of words, style (Douglas, 1994), effective use of body language, analysis-synthesis are the essential criteria that are considered.

In various sources, requirements for a successful speaker features are summarized as follows:

“A speaker looks at the issue from different angles; he/she has wide horizons; he/she thinks and talks about issues other than daily ones; he/she makes empathy; he/she gives a place for humor in their speech; he/she has a unique way of speaking (K?l?nç and ?ahin, 2013, p.8); he/she gives some examples and explanations in his/her speech; he/she sets the speed and tone of speech, he/she makes emphasis correctly; he/she is a rigorous critical for himself/herself if it is necessary; he/she pays attention to his/her appearance; he/she knows the audience; he/she communicates with the audience face to face (Temur and Çak?ro?lu, 2010, p.168); he/she makes balanced breathing; his/her voice organs are harmonious; he/she is mature and smart; he/she is careful… (Temizyürek et al., 2007, p. 264).

In order to train the individuals who have all of the criteria stated and can effectively express themselves correctly and successfully, it must be focused on speech training process. By considering variables that can impact on the speaking skills (gender, multilingualism), various applications should be carried out (Özbay, 2013, p. 104).

Thus, the researches demonstrate that gender and being multilingual variables is effective on students’ success of effective speaking. While some studies articulate that male students feel more speech anxiety and fear than female students and so they could not speak effectively (Sevim and Gedik, 2014), some studies demonstrate that female students feel more speech anxiety and fear than male students and so they cannot have an effective speech (Bozkurt, 2004; Çakmak and Hevedanl?, 2005; Ergür, 2004; Rosenthal and Schreiner 2000; Surtees et al., 2002).

Similarly, it has been known that monolingual students are more successful in the language skills like   effective speaking and writing when they are compared to multilingual students. Y?lmaz (2014) points out that being multilingual have the negative impact on the individual's academic achievement and the solution to this problem is to give students effective language training.

When the variables affecting the speaking skills and evaluation criteria for effective speaking skills given above are considered, it can said that the technique of Academic Controversy is one of the effective and modern teaching techniques in speech training that will meet these criteria.

Academic Controversy technique is one of the important techniques used in “Collaborative Learning”. Socialization and personal development activities which are accepted between indisputable universal goals of education are among the main concerns of collaborative learning activities. In this sense, collaborative learning is a teaching method which is the proven positive effects on cognitive and affective learning products in which understanding (listening and reading), expression (speaking and writing) being the basic of active learning are used, cooperation skills coming to the forefront, social interaction being on the basis, capable of responding to the needs of students, allowing them to use their mental abilities and make decisions about their own learning (?ahin, 2011, p. 9). Slavin (1999) defines cooperative learning as one of the most effective products of the modern educational approach which is often applied by contemporary educators in training activities.

Collaborative learning, by improving their duty and social responsibility against each of the people in interpersonal interactions, helps to eliminate misunderstanding which is likely to happen between student-student, student-teacher and to develop empathy skills (Jonhnson and Johnson, 1985; Slavin et al., 1984  Stahl, 1994; Johnson et al., 1998).

While collaborative learning activities contributes male and female students to the development of leadership skills by taking responsibility for teaching and learning (Bean, 1996), it allows students to improve their communication skills and to establish academic relations by making more accurate and effective communications both individually and in the classroom (Tinto, 1997).

The research on collaborative learning techniques demonstrates that this method has been developing mental thinking skills of students (Webb, 1980; Slavin, 1992), it provides facilities for the students to  develop their critical thinking skills and freely express their ideas by creating a debate about academic issues (Nelson-Legall, 1992 ), it helps students to express themselves orally without hesitation (Bershon, 1992), it constitutes exploratory and effective teaching-learning environment by increasing the awareness and responsibility for learning (Slavin, 1980; Baird and White, 1984), it directs students to conduct research and analysis by promoting learning-based approach (Cooper et al., 1984 ).

Starting from the results of this research, one of the major benefits of collaborative learning activities is under-stood that it encourages students to build healthy social relationships by developing effective communication skills, prepares the ground to increase the competence of individual by taking responsibility for learning and teaching and ultimately helps them achieve self-realization by eliminating the barrier that hinders the student from being successful, confident and social individuals. 

Academic controversy, one of the techniques that fulfill the described aims of collaborative learning methods in growing successful individuals in society, seems to be effective to bring student academic and social skills like research, investigation, analysis-synthesis do, achieve results and transfer the obtained results with an effective narrative forms. 

Academic controversy technique, developed by Johnson and Johnson, is shown as one of the least used teaching approaches although it has the characteristics that are powerful, dynamic, exciting, participation provider (?ahin, 2013, p. 32). Aç?kgöz (2011, p. 182) explains the reasons for less use of this technique as the reasons that  how the controversy should be applied as a teaching strategy is not defined previously, teachers are not trained in how this technique should be applied and people generally afraid of controversy and conflicts. However, controversies and conflicts are unavoidable that the learners may face in healthy learning activities and these conditions can be used as a teaching opportunity. Indeed Academic Controversy is a teaching practice which can be effective in teaching to think critically, to communicate effectively, and to reach a rational judgment (Aç?kgöz, 2006).

In addition, this technique is also believed to reduce the effect of the independent variables like gender known to be effective on individuals’ speaking skills and being multilingual.

The process steps of the technique can be summarized as follows:

Forming the Groups: First, students are divided into groups that include four students in terms of demographic characteristics (gender, achievement, age, and single-lingual, multilingual and so on.) Then, groups are divided into two sub-groups to defend conflicting thoughts.

Presenting the Controversy: Predetermined controversy is presented to groups. Controversies must have the characteristics that are open to debate, have uncertain result and can be defended by two sides. 

Preparation of proposals: Groups prepare the report containing its recommendations and they plan how to defend their opinions by dividing into further sub- groups for defending opposing views.

Presentation of Opinions: Parties defend their opinions and explain why they defend it.

Defense: At this stage, the parties argue about the views put forward.

Understanding Opposite opinions: Parties explain what the opposite views are.

Judging: a decision is made on which the two sides can agree. To do this, students move away from defending their opinions and then will have an agreement by synthesizing the best evidence and prepare a group report. Finally, members of the group prepare for the exam which they will be taken individually (Aç?kgöz, 2006, p. 183).

Since the reason for this study was carried out on Turkish teacher candidates, the responsibility of individuals studying at primary, secondary and higher education to provide effective speaking skills is loaded with Turkish teachers.

Yet, a Turkish teacher, who does not have an effective speaking skills, will have difficulty in training successful individuals who can express themselves verbally, effectively directing community by conversations. It should be noted that successful individuals / students can be successfully trained by successful teachers.

In the research the following questions are tried to answer:

1. Is there any effect of the Academic Controversy technique on development of Turkish teachers’ Turkish oratory skills?

2. Is there any effect of the Academic Controversy technique on gender related to candidates’ Turkish oratory success?

3. Is there any effect of the Academic Controversy technique on being multilingual related to candidates’ Turkish oratory success?

In this study that investigated the effects of Academic Controversy technique on speaking skills of the Turkish teacher candidates, experimental design with control group based on pre-test and post-test measurements, one of the experimental research designs, was used.

 

The working group

Working group of the research consists of 62 Turkish teacher candidates studying in Turkish Education Department in a state university at spring semester of 2013-2014 academic years. Two sections were created considering the demographic characteristics of the teacher candidates (gender, academic achievement, multilingualism etc.). Before the application, pre-test application data carried on research groups was examined and there was no significant difference between the sections. By using a random assignment, one of the sections (n = 32) was identified as the test group and the other section (n = 30) was identified as the control group.

 

Data collection tools

Turkish Effective Speaking Scale (TESS) is used as a data collection tool. The scale consists of the dimensions that measure skills like audio, presentation, style and expression, focusing on the discussion and taking into account the audience. Subscale and scale-item scale was discussed by five experts in the field of Turkish education at the Faculty of Education and after obtaining a positive opinion of experts, it has been decided to use the scale without any changes.

The 20-item scale consisting of 24 items contain positive and 4 items contain negative judgment. The scale developed on teacher candidates by Y?ld?z and Yavuz (2012) is a 5-point Likert-type form like “totally agree, agree, moderately agree, disagree, and strongly disagree”.

Prior to application, the reliability of the scale was tested by making pre-application on 88 Turkish teacher candidates studying at Turkish Education Department in the Faculty of Education in the University of Yüzüncü Y?l. Preliminary result of the application of the scale Cronbach’s Alpha (KR 20) value was 0.90. This consistency coefficient indicates that the scale is highly reliable and available.

 

 Practices for the experimental group (Academic Consistency Technique)

1. Throughout a week (4 h), information about principles of academic controversy technical, application phases, intra-group activities, materials, task-responsibility and goal achievements are made to experimental group students.

2. As a part of the pre-test application, each student was asked to speak for 5 min on the controversy given the previous week. The conversations were evaluated with Turkish Effective Speaking Scale (TESS) by 3 different experts and then the average was taken. Speaking skills assessment studies were carried throughout 160 min (four hours).

3. Then, class consisting of 32 people is divided into 4-person mixed group in terms of variables such as gender, academic achievement and multilingualism by the researcher.

4. It has been noted that there are two girls and two boys in each group. In this way, it has attempted that the students do not hesitate to communicate with each other.

5. Respectively, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H codes are given to create 8 groups and groups were also told that they will find a group name starting with the letter if they want to. For example: “Lions” for the group A; “Virgo” for the group B and so on.

6. Second codes are given to individuals in groups, depending on the group code. Ex., individuals, respectively, in group A1, A2, A3, A4; the members of the group B B1, B2, B3, B4; those in group C, C1, C2, C3, C4; students in group D, D1, D2, D3, D4 and so on. This process is performed for all groups.

7. Materials like  worksheets, lecture notes, reference books, textbooks and activity book were determined and obtained by the researcher. It has also been requested from the group to work their subjects with investigating further issues at least a different source by giving homework.

8. Studies were initiated by introducing the groups to controversies that are opened to discussion and have ambiguous response and can be defended by the two sides in terms of education and social issues. Controversies are prepared by taking the experts’ opinions.

9. In 10 weeks (4 h per week), work started in groups by being directed to investigate the controversies presented to them and use previously prepared materials for discussing and defending the information they get in groups.

10. As work time, two weeks (8 h) is given for each determined controversy.

 

The controversies are presented respectively:

1. Writing is more important to develop imagination/ Reading is more important to develop imagination.

2. Adults should decide on behalf of children/ Adults should not decide on behalf of children.

3. Application of uniform clothes in education should be / Application of uniform clothes in education should not be.

4. Attendance in universities should be/ Attendance in universities should not be

5. Congressman should have parliamentary immunity/ Congressman should not have parliamentary immunity

Then, individuals who work the first study at the main group are divided into sub-group pairs. At this stage, they have continued to work in the binary sub-groups. Parties have made planning about how to most effectively defend their arguments by resources like worksheets, books and articles presented to them. They tried to put forward the results to prove the correctness of their views by preparing reports on the information they have reached.

After completion of the preparatory work, binary groups come together and then they made their final preparations for transferring knowledge and experience concerning controversies with persuasive speeches method to the group on the opposite opinion.

The parties have come together and they explained respectively (thesis-antithesis) their opinions they defend and why they defend it with a convincing manner through the information they get. After presenting the views, both groups have worked together through cooperation on what would be the best decision. During this study, in order to achieve more information for explaining issues that do not make sense, the groups continued for some time to research.

After reaching the last information, the parties have come together for defense and they have submitted their views to the opposite side again. In the last step, the groups are left to defend their views and they synthesized the best available evidence by taking into account group study, research and defenses. It has been reached an agreement with the synthesis business and a report covering the agreed issues (group report) were prepared by end of study.

At the end of the study, group reports presented to the class by the researcher and then the groups were celebrated and honored for their successful work. After this stage, each member of the groups began to individual work for preparing to the exams that they took individually. At the eleventh week, the study was finished by making post-test application for 160 min (four hours).

 

Practices for the control group (Traditional Method)

Traditional teaching format is used extensively as a teaching method in Turkey.  This method is known as a teacher-centered teaching method. In educational activities in which the traditional method is used, teacher is the one who researches, reads, compiles, classifies and configures the information he/she gets. Teacher works actively in the process of obtaining information and then by using recitation and repetition techniques, he/she attempts to transfer the information to the students who are in the passive state in the educational environment. In this process, teachers attempt to characterize the students by the messages like “I want you to watch”, “I will talk to you; shut up”, “Follow me,” “do as I say” (Duruhan, 2004, p. 3).

In this study (control group) application steps performed are as follows:

1. A control group consisting of 30 Turkish teacher candidates was created.

2. For a week (4 h), students were informed about teaching activities carried out during the semester.

3. As a practice of pre-test, each student was asked to speak for 5 min about the controversy given in the previous week. The conversations were evaluated with Turkish Effective Speaking Scale (TESS) by 3 different experts. Pre-test application was maintained throughout 150 min (about four hours).

4. Worksheets, lecture notes, textbooks were prepared and introduced to the students by the teacher. The students were required to provide recommended reading books, if it is possible.

5. In a traditional classroom setting (educational environment where students are passive listeners), speech training courses were taught from the books with teacher-centered method by using narrative techniques.

6. Topics such as the importance of effective speaking, specifications that are sought in the successful speaker, mental, physiological and physical properties of speech and so on have been explained to the students by the teacher.

7. From time to time, the teacher had students talk on the topics that he determined and he/she gave them feedback on speech defects and deficiencies.

8. The training has been maintained throughout 10 weeks (4 hours per week).

9. At the eleventh week, the teacher has completed the study by application of post- test for 150 min (four hours).

 

Data analysis

SPSS 16.0 software was used to analyze the data. In the analysis of data obtained from Turkish Effective Speaking Scale (TESS) with pre-test and post-test application, Dependent Samples t-test has been used to evaluate the measurement results of the test or control group; Independent samples t-test statistics has been used for measurements of control and experimental groups.

In order to understand the effect of the technique of Academic controversy on the variables like effective speaking the success of Turkish teacher candidates and gender and being multilingual. The experimental and control groups (Turkish Effective Speaking Scale) pretest - posttest data were compared with Dependent/ Independent samples of the t-test.

TESS pre-test and post-test comparison results of the control group having a traditional teaching are given in Table 1.

 

 

According to the table, there is a significant difference between the pre-test to post-test and post-test results (t: -7,309; p<,05). It is observed that the effective speech training carried out by the traditional method increases the success statistically significantly. These results indicate that the traditional teaching is effective on Turkish speaking success.

TESS pre-test and post-test comparison results of the experimental group to whom Turkish effective speech training performed by Academic Conflict technique is applied are given in Table 2.

 

 

It is seen that there is a significant difference between pre-test and post-test results of the experimental group in the table (t: -14.622, p <.05). These findings suggest that Turkish effective speech training conducted according to the principles of Academic Controversy technique increases the success in a statistically significant level.

The dependent sample t-test results given in Tables 1 and 2 demonstrate that Turkish effective teaching of speech conducted by both traditional methods and academic controversy technique  significantly increase the success of Turkish teachers’ speaking skills. Pre-test and post-test comparison results of Control and Experiment groups are given in Table 3.

 

 

The average of the control group students in the pre-test is 66.16 and the average of the experimental group students is 68.03. It has been seen that there is no statistically significant difference between the control and experimental groups in the pre-test (t:-,810 p> ,05).

The average of the control group students in the post-test is 69.94 and the average of the experimental group students is 82.57. It has been seen that in favor of the experimental group, there is statistically significant difference between the control and experimental groups in the post-test (t:-4,839; p< ,05).

These findings suggest that Academic Controversy technique is more effective than traditional teacher-centered methods in the development of Turkish teacher candidates’ Turkish oratory skills.

The relationship between TESS pre-test and post-test average scores of control and experimental groups is shown more clearly in Figure 1.

 

 

While in the pre-test, it has not been observed that there is a significant difference between averages of Turkish oratory success of the experimental and control groups of teacher candidates, in the post-test,  it is seen that there is a significant difference in favor of the experimental group on  whom  Academic  Controversy  is applied. From the figure, it can be said that Academic Controversy technique is more effective than traditional teacher-centered methods in the development of Turkish teacher candidates’ Turkish oratory skills.

Pre-test and post-test results of effects of Academic Controversy techniques on the variables like gender and being multilingual are given in Tables 4 and 5.

 

 

 

When Table 4 is examined, it shows that there is a statistically significant difference between Turkish oratory success of male and female teacher candidates according to results of pre-test (t: 2,241; p< ,05). When the results of post-test are

examined, it is observed that there is no statistically significant difference between successes of male and female teacher candidates (t:1,831; p>,05). According to these findings, it can be said that effective speech training performed by Academic Controversy technique eliminates the effect of gender on the success of teacher candidates.

Findings on the effect of the Academic Controversy technique on multilingualism variable are given in Table 5.

When Table 5 is examined, it is observed that variable to be multilingual is significantly effective on Turkish oratory success of the candidates according to both results of pre-test (t: 2,208; p< ,05) and post-test (t: 2,363; p< ,05). In other words, Academic Controversy technique did not reduce significantly the effects of multilingualism.

 

 

The results of problem-questions of the research are as follows:

1.   It has been found that Academic Controversy technique is more effective than traditional teacher-centered methods in the development of Turkish teacher candidates’ Turkish oratory skills (Table 3).

In the results related to the first question of the study, it was determined that academic controversy technique which is an application of collaborative learning was more successful compared to traditional methods in development of Turkish teacher candidates’ effective speaking skills in Turkish.

It can be said that Academic Controversy technique is effective in providing students with the opportunity to express their thoughts and feelings on specific topics without hesitation by preparing a democratic and social learning environment. Teaching-learning activities which are student- centered and performed by doing and living can be said to provide a significant contribution to develop students’ language skills, self-confidence, opportunities to use language effectively.

In the literature, it is possible to see numerous experimental studies which test the impacts of Collaborative learning techniques on Turkish language skills. In his research, ?ahin (2013) examined the effect of Jigsaw technique and traditional cluster group on 8th grade students for academic success in their writing skills and students’ attitudes to practices. As a result of the survey, it was determined that collaborative group work has been more successful than the traditional cluster group work. In a similar survey, Karda? (2014) examines the effect of collaborative learning on teacher candidates’ grammar achievement and as a result of research, he assesses that collaborative group work gives better results than the traditional group studies. In his other experimental studies on the effect of collaborative learning on Turkish language skills (2013a, 2013b, 2011), Karda? has determined that Collaborative learning gives more successful results compared to the traditional method. When the results obtained from similar researches done by Maden (2011a, 2011b, and 2010) have been examined, it also has been shown that Collaborative learning applications is more successful compared to other traditional methods in teaching Turkish. In related researches, ?ahin (2011a, 2010) examined the effect of Jigsaw II and Jigsaw III applications, which are Collaborative learning techniques, on Turkish writing skills of students and determined that the obtained results are in favor of collaborative learning applications. The results obtained in these studies are in line with the results of our study.

2.   Academic Controversy technique significantly eliminates the effect of gender on the success of Turkish oratory skills (Table 4).

At the results related to the second question of the study, it was determined that because of academic controversy technique, “Gender” variable of which significant effects are observed in the pre-test data has no significant effects on the post-test data.

In other words, it has been shown that Academic controversy technique significantly decreases the impact of gender which is in favor of female candidates between male and female teachers. This result can be explained that Academic controversy technique has increased significantly the Turkish oratory skills through the applications in which male teacher candidates can express themselves in the classroom and in social media, interpersonal and group calmly without panic and where-by the technique enable them closing the achievement gap   between   male   and female   teacher   candidates coming from the gender.

When it is considered that one of the important indicators to assess successful teaching practices is to break the influence of the independent variables on the dependent variables effectively, the practices of academic controversy technique can, in this sense, be said to be successful.

As one of the Cooperative Learning techniques, Academic controversy, determined to be an effective method for the development of Turkish speaking skills, is thought to be beneficial to use in training the students who study primary, secondary and higher education.

3.   Academic Controversy technique did not significantly reduce the effect of being multilingual on the success of Turkish oratory skills (Table 5).

At the results related to the third question of the study, it was observed that the variable “being multilingual (bilingual)” has been effective significantly on Turkish teacher candidates’ Turkish oratory skills in both pre-test and post-test data. This result can explain that the practices of academic controversy technique alone is not enough for reducing significantly the effect of the variable “being multilingual” on the success. The result shows that being multilingual has a negative impact on Turkish oratory skills of the candidates.

In conclusion, with the changes of societal culture and technological advancement, it is necessary to   consider the interests and needs of students in language education, with methods that are appropriate to their different learning styles, are modern and also effective.

When providing a fun learning environment, including all students in the learning activities in the classroom, the sharing of knowledge and skills in group work, giving opportunities the students in mixed groups to discuss specific topics without any hesitation, and by doing this, allowing them to realize their wrong and missing, containing skill-based and application-oriented activities, the advantages in performing an effective communication environment are considered, it is understood that Academic Controversy technique must be preferred as a technique in education.

Taking into account the results of the study, the follow-ing recommendations can be made for field researchers:

1. Experimental studies in which the effect of academic controversy on other language skills has been investigated can be done.

2. Experimental studies in which the effect of Academic Controversy on students’ speaking skills in English, French, German, Arabic, Persian, and so on has been investigated can be done.

3. Experimental studies in which students’ attitudes and opinion concerning the practices of academic controversy technique has been investigated can be done.

4. Experimental studies in which relationship between academic controversy technique and other variables (reading   habits,   writing   frequency,   the   frequency of participation in social activities and so on.) has been investigated can be done.

The author has not declared any conflict of interests.