A PBLT approach to teaching ESL speaking, writing, and thinking skills

This paper introduces Philosophy-based Language Teaching (PBLT) as a new approach to developing productive language and thinking skills in students. The approach involves posing philosophical questions and engaging students in dialogues within a community of enquiry context. To substantiate the approach, the paper reports a study in which 34 university students from one of the major universities in Iran were randomly assigned to two groups: one experimental (PBLT/led by philosophical questions) and the other control (conventional/directed by ordinary or non-philosophical questions). Results revealed that there was a significant difference between the two groups with students in the experimental group outperforming those in the control group on both speaking andwriting tasks. The findings of the study have implications for all stakeholders in ELT locally and internationally.