Debate has long been considered an invaluable method of language teaching, requiring students to think quickly, critically, analytically, and in a structured and organized way. But how can teachers assess the progress of their students at debate and its constitutive skills, and how can students’ strength at debate be used to assess their progress as English language learners? In this presentation, I will discuss ways to organize classroom debates to make them maximally effective at assessing students’ critical thinking and speaking progress and different criteria by which teachers can judge and evaluate debate (and how teachers can prepare students to judge and assess one another in debates