Inquiring the Attitudes of English Language Education Specialists about Integrating Islamic-Iranian Identity in Iranian ELT Program: A Qualitative Survey

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Hossein davari 1
Aida Firoozian Pouresfahani 2
Ailin Firoozian Pouresfahani 3
Saeed Nourzadeh 4
1 Associate Professor of English Language Department, Damghan University, Damghan, Iran (Corresponding Author).
2 Assistant Professor of English Language Department,Imam Reza International University Mashhad, Iran
3 Assistant Professor of English Language Department, Damghan University, Damghan, Iran
4 Assistant Professor of English Language Department, Damghan University, Damghan, Iran.
10.22034/rjnsq.2021.270485.1236
Abstract
English language teaching (ELT) in Post-revolutionary Iran has experienced ups and downs. One of its recent significant changes is the mention of its teaching in two significant educational and development documents, namely the fundamentaldocument of transformation and the national curriculum document adopted in the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution. According to these documents, the foreign language education is on condition that its teaching stabilizes and strengthens the Islamic and Iranian identity. Following the ratification of these two documents, which has been accompanied by various criticisms, a new series of school textbooks were developed on the basis of this condition. Due to the importance of this development, in this paper, the attitudes of a number of ELT specialists have been gathered and qualitatively analyzed. The findings reveal that there are two opposing attitudes on the topic. The first one which is against any ideological teaching of English and regards it as an unscientific and illogical approach and the second one which is in favor of this position and not only regards it as a logical approach, but an essential one. Undoubtedly, paying attention to these attitudes not only will be useful for the process of English language education policy and planning in Iran, but will be efficient in its evaluation
Keywords
Islamic-Iranian identity
English Language Teaching
Attitude
Textbook
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