English Language Education Throughout Islamic Republic Reign in Iran: Government Policies and People’s Attitudes

Abstract

After four decades of anti-intrusion policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) against the English language, the time has come to evaluate their success rates and to study the status of this language in Iran. This study has thus investigated the status of the English language in Iran on two levels: one concerning the state’s policies and another, the people’s attitudes. To do so, we carried out research on the content of education documents of the IRI and the English language teaching textbooks employed in the education system. To locate the society’s stance on the English language, we administered a survey study on 472 participants randomly sampled from undergraduate students from four state universities. We concluded that there is an evident gap between the approach of the Islamic government and the people’s approach toward English language in the current Iranian society.