Abstract
Debate is regarded as an effective way to cultivate logical and critical thinking in the education of academic Japanese. However, practicing debate is not easy for learners of Japanese because it requires both Japanese language ability and logical thinking ability. This paper reports and seeks solutions to problems observed in a debating contest for learners of Japanese at upper intermediate level. The main problems were as follows: 1) inconsistencies between the questions and answers, 2) wrong arguments due to lack of general knowledge, 3) remarks that digressed from the subject.
