Policies of English language teacher recruitment in Iran and a glimpse of their implementation

Abstract

This study examines policies of English language teacher recruitment in Iran as part of broader education policies reflected in official national documents, and briefly investigates the implementation of these policies in selected educational institutions. Seven major documents are scrutinised using qualitative content analysis revealing three major categories of English language teacher recruitment policies: prioritising Islamic values and perspectives; emphasising commitment to the goals of the educational system; and focusing on recruited teachers’ knowledge and expertise. Moreover, interviews with three groups of participants at public schools, private language institutes, and universities showed clear discrepancies in translating the official policies into actual recruitment practices. In addition to considerations related to our local context, more broadly, we argue that language education policy as a rich research area, should be further studied in more specific sub-areas such as language teacher education policies, policies of language teaching materials development, and language assessment policies.