Perspectives of Iranian University Students on Learning English: A Practical Need and/or an International Policy-push?

ABSTRACT

While English is embraced worldwide as a global means of communication, its teaching and learning is a contested arena of contacts between the so-called English native-speaker culture and local learner cultures. In this study, we investigate Iranian university students’ viewpoints on the necessity and justifications for learning English and their awareness of international policies of promoting this language. A group of 855 male and female students of different fields of study at six major universities of Tehran responded to a researcher-made questionnaire and 28 participants were interviewed for more in-depth explanations about their standpoints. The findings indicate that the participants are in absolute favour of learning the English language as an undeniable necessity as a multifaceted communicative instrument. Moreover, they seem to have limited sensitivity to the potential sociopolitical functioning of English and the policies and plans for promoting the teaching and learning of this language around the world.

KEYWORDS:

• English language teaching
• ELT
• ELT in Iran
• ELT policy
• cultural politics of English

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran [96/3/1812].

Notes on contributors

Seyyed-Abdolhamid Mirhosseini

Seyyed-Abdolhamid Mirhosseini is an Assistant Professor at Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran. His research areas include sociopolitics of language education, qualitative research methodology and critical discourse studies. His writing has appeared in journals including Applied Linguistics, Journal of Language and Politics, Journal of Multicultural Discourses, Language, Culture and Curriculum, Pedagogy, Culture & Society and TESOL Quarterly. He is the editor of Reflections on Qualitative Research in Language and Literacy Education (Springer, 2017) and the guest editor of a special issue of Critical Inquiry in Language Studies (2018) on ‘Politics of Research in Language Education’.

Narges Badri

Narges Badri received her MA in Teaching English as a Foreign Language from Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran. She is interested in social and cultural aspects of teaching English as a foreign language.