Foreign Language Policy and its Relationship with National Identity: An Investigation into English Teachers’ Attitude

Iranian’s national identity is partially developed through interaction between government’s language policy and the citizens’ attitude toward foreign languages. The social position assumed for English teachers provides them with the opportunity to observe the results of this interaction in terms of the students’ identity. The present study aims to investigate teachers’ evaluation of foreign language plans and policies during the past 15 years in Iran. Theoretical foundations of this research are adopted from theories developed within the discipline of language policy and planning, social constructionism, and theories of interaction between national identity and foreign language teaching. 120 experienced English teachers filled a validated 20-item questionnaire, and the collected data was analyzed using two-dimensional chi square test. The results of the study show that while there has been a significant progress in codification and elaboration stages, no significant and positive changes were observed in formulation, implementation, and cultivation stages. The identity challenges associated with English language teaching are discussed, and a number of solutions to deal with the problem are proposed.