Presented By Mahdi Dahmardeh

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The English language is a compulsory subject in the Iranian curriculum but because of the lack of attention that has been given to research within this subject, it could be argued that English has been neglected within Iranian educational system. Accordingly, there is a special emphasis on achievement standards in Iranian schools; as a result there is an increased pressure on teachers to prepare their learners to take language exams as fast as possible. Given that the vast majority of language exams and tests in Iran fail to assess real communicative language content, teaching communicative skills becomes or remains a neglected component in many foreign language classrooms. Consequently, students’ lack of success in communicating in English after studying it for seven years (three years in guidance school and four years in secondary school) is the result. This paper is a report on findings from a pioneering research that recently has been done within the Iranian context (Dahmardeh 2008). The project includes many interviews with Iranian language teachers, textbook authors and curriculum designers and a vast majority of literature that were touched upon before starting the research. Finally, although the work has been done within the Iranian context but so many suggestions, if not the whole aspects, of the research could be applied to any foreign/second language situation.

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