Context in English Language Teaching Program: Differentiating between Iranian Public Schools and Private Institutes

Abstract

For some years, there was a debate about the effectiveness of public and private sectors in language learning field, not only in Iran but also in USA and Europe. Actually, a context in which language learners are provided with friendly communicative environment is a great help to learn how to use the language communicatively in authentic situations. Therefore, a context in which the efficient factors are employed more appropriately enables EFL learners to emphasize the communicative use of language in everyday, real world situations. In Iran, the students can learn English in two contexts including a) public schools that are funded and supported by the government b) private institutes. In public education, the students start learning English from the first year of Junior Secondary Program for six years. But after graduating from high school, hardly some of them are able to communicate fluently (Safari & Rashidi, 2015). Thus, this study investigated the comparability of the effectiveness of two education systems applied in two contexts on oral communication skills. Direct observations, interviews, and FCE speaking test taken by 154 students of two contexts revealed that the language learners of private institutes outperformed on oral skills. Furthermore, the results of independent t-test indicated that 8 internal and external moderator-factors assessed by a questionnaire might affect speaking performance of language learners in two contexts. The findings were also supported by the interview-based data.

The Role of L2 Motivational Self System and Grit in EFL Learners’ Willingness to Communicate: A Study of Public School vs. Private English Language Institute Learners

“…In essence, the revision in the English curriculum and textbooks aimed mainly at inserting the "Islamic-Iranian identity, national culture and local beliefs" (Mirhosseini and Khodakarami, 2015, p. 25), and in practice, public schools' English courses still focused on reading comprehension, grammar, and vocabulary development (Sadeghi and Richards, 2016). Writing practice is limited to composing decontextualized sentences, listening cannot be seen anywhere in the syllabus, and speaking does not move beyond a few drills and short dialogues (Rahimi, 2009;Sadeghi and Richards, 2016;Khoshsima and Hashemi Toroujeni, 2017).…”

“…The EFL teachers play an influential role in students' WTC in many ways, including topic selection (Zarrinabadi, 2014), teaching style (Zarei et al, 2019), and appropriate activities selection (MacIntyre et al, 1998). Public school EFL teachers are forced/accustomed to avoiding employing L2 tasks, which can encourage and facilitate communication in the target language (Khoshsima and Hashemi Toroujeni, 2017;Hosseini Goodrich, 2020). This can be due to the centralized curriculum, the limited classroom time, excessive workload, inappropriate coursebooks, and crowded classes.…”

EFL learners’ grit, classroom enjoyment and their willingness to communicate: Iranian public school versus private English language institute learners

“…From a curriculum perspective, the ministry of education in Iran has published certain books and assigned the same syllabus for public schools across the country. Khoshsima and Hashemi Toroujeni ( 2017 ) revealed that the Iranian public educational system primarily uses Grammar Translation Method (GTM) as its teaching methodology. For many decades, the methodology of such schools consisted of “reading, translation, memorization, and grammar” (Hosseini Goodrich, 2020 , p. 9).…”

Improving the relevance of an English syllabus within a top-down teaching context

“…It was a homogeneous group of Mexican teachers who have a BA in English, one of whom was male and three of whom were female. They provided value data concerning the internal realities of the teaching context, which helped gain understanding of how within the setting the issues surrounding the role of ELT (Khoshsima and Hashemi Toroujeni, 2017).…”