علی دباغ

Culture is an indispensable part of Foreign Language Education Policy (FLEP), especially in English Language Teaching (ELT). In addition, the spread of English around the globe has resulted in English users’ tendency to embed their local culture in their English communication (Kirkpatrick, 2012). However, literature remains silent on culture representation in FLEP, especially in an ideologized country like Iran. To address this issue, due to lack of an explicit FLEP in Iran, the present study analyzed the cultural schemas addressed in the seven major national policy documents of Iran, namely 20-year National Vision, Comprehensive Science Roadmap, Support for Comprehensive Science Roadmap in the Domain of Languages, Cultural Engineering Document, National Curriculum, Fundamental Reform in Education, and Islamicization of Universities. Results of content analysis using MAXQDA Software unmasked Islamic-Iranian culture as the baseline for ELT in Iran. In order to further examine the representations and implications of ‘Islamic-Iranian culture’ hidden in the documents, open coding, axial coding, and labeling along with constant comparative procedure revealed various Islamic cultural schemas. However, very few instances of Iranian cultural schemas were unveiled. The findings were discussed in light of the hidden curriculum and the power relations behind the extracted cultural schemas

The present study evaluated the learning objectives represented in the recent Iranian nation-wide ELT textbooks, i.e. Prospect and Vision series, and compared them to those in the internationally-published textbook of Four Corners. To this end, Bloom’s revised taxonomy of learning objectives was utilized as the analytical framework to scrutinize the tasks and exercises of the textbooks using a researcher-made coding scheme based on the taxonomy and investigate the extent to which they represent lower-order thinking skills (LOTS) (i.e. remembering, understanding, and applying) and higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) (i.e. analyzing, evaluating, and creating). Inter-coder reliability procedure was carried out to ensure the consistency of the scheme (Phi-coefficient =.89). Results of chi-square analysis revealed that Four Corners series dealt with LOTS and HOTS significantly more and above Prospect and Vision series. Furthermore, while Prospect and Vision series portrayed a completely imbalanced view towards LOTS and HOTS, Four Corners provided a somehow balanced representation in the tasks and exercises. The findings make the ELT teachers aware of the cognitive levels in the textbooks and recommend them to add supplementary materials when needed. Moreover, the results point to the significance of modifying the cognitive load of the Prospect and Vision series.