Being able to communicate effectively, in both professional life and personal relationships, is the key to success in a globalized world that highlights the importance of oral communication skills. Cognitive skills, as an essential demand of the modern workforce, is another important element that youth need to get ahead in the workplaces, as well as, in everyday life. Recent trends in teaching foreign languages resort to using activities that help in developing and enhancing the cognitive and communicative demands of real-life. Using debates in the language classroom, had proved its effectiveness in this regard, as it engages students in a variety of cognitive and linguistic ways. It encourages unmotivated and conservative students to participate and express their thoughts. Beside developing speaking skills, debates develop critical thinking and research skills. Trujillo-Jenks, L. & Rosen, L. (2015); Asrida, D. (2016); Tanjid, M. (2022); Jagtiani, J. (2021). This presentation will share the presenter’s practical experience which proved that using debates as an activity for teaching Arabic as a foreign language to heritage students was very effective in enriching the educational process in general. Its effectiveness was confirmed through student evaluations. When such activity was appropriately used, it greatly helped in engaging students with different learning styles cognitively and linguistically. Beside developing listening and speaking skills, debates fostered reading and writing skills as well. Moreover, it developed critical thinking and research skills. Examining controversial topics, allowed students to see both sides of a situation; hence, becoming more tolerance to others’ opinions. Most interestingly, classroom debates helped students to learn through friendly fighting. It positively influenced the relationship between students, and between them and the teacher. The presentation will Also show how this activity can be used in a way that simulates the cognitive and communicative requirements of real-life tasks, bringing out its impact not only on improving learners’ language proficiency, but also their motivation, critical thinking and research skills. The presentation will provide a complete visualization of the lesson plan that enables conducting a productive activity and achieving the course learning outcomes.