SALOUMEH KHODABAKHSHI & ALI RAHIMI
Investigating the Problems of Teaching and Learning English in Middle Schools in Iran
66
INVESTIGATING THE PROBLEMS OF TEACHING AND
LEARNING ENGLISH IN MIDDLE SCHOOLS IN IRAN
Saloumeh Khodabakhshi
Department of English, University of Kashan, Iran
E-mail: saloumehkhodabakhshi@yahoo.com
Ali Rahimi
Department of Applied Linguistics, School of Humanities, Bangkok University, Thailand
E-mail: rahimijah@yahoo.com
APA Citation: Khodabakhshi, S. & Rahimi, A. (2013). Investigating the problems of teaching and
learning english in middle schools in iran. English Review: Journal of English
Education, 2(1), 66-72
Received: 04-09-2013 Accepted: 29-10-2013 Published: 01-12-2013
Abstract: The present research aimed to investigate the problems of teaching and learning
English in middle schools in Esfahan, Iran. These problems are associated with the learner,
teacher, textbook, syllabus, and language policy. The instrument used was a self-constructed
likert scale questionnaire. All the variables had a hand in the problems among which textbook,
syllabus and language policy had the most effect. Twenty five problems were distinguished
among which some are as follows: students do not consider pair work important; most of the
time, most teachers do not speak in English in the classroom; the textbook does not include
CDs or cassettes, does not consists of all the English Skills; the syllabus does not include one
or two projects for students apart from the midterm or final test, Language Policy being not
completely familiar with the steps of EFL teaching, does not selecting the most qualified and
proficient teachers in EFL teaching. It can be concluded that the language policy should take
a practical step in reducing the problems by changing the textbooks and providing more
teaching aids for the teachers.
Keywords: teaching and learning English, problems of teaching and learning English, middle school, Iran
INTRODUCTION
Teaching and learning English
has been a crucial issue in developing
countries particularly in Iran. Most
teachers have concerns about teaching
and learning English and what methods
and approaches are the best for students.
As the same result, problems in teaching
and learning English have always existed.
In Iran, students graduate from school
while they are not able to communicate
in English (Dahmardeh 2006; Karimnia &
Zade 2007). In order to know what factors
contribute to such problems, it is better to
know what the characteristics of a good
language learner, a teacher, a textbook,
a syllabus, and a language policy are. So
by going through literature, one can find
out these characteristics, afterwards by
using a questionnaire, the opinions of the
students towards learning English can be
investigated and based on the objectives
of the study it can be tried to specify
the problems of teaching and learning
English.
Rubin and Thompson (1983) as cited
in Nunan (2006: 57-58) have conducted
a well-known study in which they state
that good language learners tend to have
the following characteristics which make
them distinct from other learners:
Good learners
1. Find their own way
2. Organize information about
language
3. Are creative and experiment with
language
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4. Make their own opportunities, and
find strategies for getting practice
in using the language inside and
outside the classroom
5. Learn to live with uncertainty and
develop strategies for making sense
of the target language without
wanting to understand every word
Brown (2001: 430) has provided a
list of the attributes of a good language
teacher. In the following list, a good
language teacher has the four features (a
few of the characteristics are mentioned
here):
Good Language-Teaching Characteristics
Technical Knowledge
1. understands the linguistic systems
of English phonology, grammar, and
discourse.
2. comprehensively grasps basic
principles of language learning and
teaching.
Pedagogical Skills
3. has a well-thought-out, informed
approach to language teaching.
4. understands and uses a wide variety
of techniques.
Interpersonal Skills
5. is aware of cross-cultural differences
and is sensitive to students’ cultural
traditions.
6. enjoys people; shows enthusiasm,
warmth, rapport, and appropriate
humor.
Personal Qualities
7. is well organized, conscientious
in meeting commitments, and
dependable.
8. is flexible when things go awry.
Hutchinson and Torres (1994) as
cited in Azizifar, Koosha, & Lotfi (2010)
stress the importance of textbooks and
textbook evaluation by stating that
learning and teaching would be difficult
without the existence of text books. In
Iran, Azizifar, Koosha, and Lotfi (2010)
have evaluated Iranian high school
books and they have come to the result
that because these text books lack the
listening activities, they do not provide
any special group works for the EFL
learners and the students will not learn
how to communicate in English.
Regarding syllabus, many have
worked on that such as Trepanier
(2008). In China, the newly issued
National English Syllabus Standard
(Department of Education, P.R.C.
2003) for compulsory education states
that “English learning is not only a
process for students to master English
knowledge and skill and improve their
practical language use but also a process
for teachers to train their will, mold their
temper, enrich their life, develop their
individual character and abilities and
sharpen humanist qualities”.
Nunan (2006: 5) puts forward
that there are many opinions about
the differences between a syllabus and
curriculum development. He provides
two approaches to syllabus design, “a
broad and narrow approach” in which
the first believes in the integration of
content and tasks, while the latter seeks
to distinct the syllabus design and
methodology.
Language policy which is
considered as the last variable, by itself
can make constraints for the learning
process. Some definitions have been
brought by different writers (Romaine
(2006), Tollefson & James as cited in
deJong, (1994), TESL-EJ)). The Wikipedia
(the free encyclopedia) implies as
follows:
Language Policy is what a
government does either officially
through legislation, court decisions
or policy to determine how
languages are used, cultivate
language skills needed to meet
national priorities or to establish
SALOUMEH KHODABAKHSHI & ALI RAHIMI
Investigating the Problems of Teaching and Learning English in Middle Schools in Iran
68
the rights of individuals or groups
to use and maintain languages.
Jing (2005) in a study tried to gain
access to the difficulties of EFL learning
through the diaries of the learners. In
his study he concluded that although
the learning difficulties are due to the
linguistics competence, their linguistic
problems may be “a product of the
relationship between their linguistic
competence and the demands that
examinations (e.g., TEM-4) placed on it”.
Apart from that, Musavi (2001)
as cited in (Razmjoo & Riazi, 2006)
argued that teachers in high school
classes put more emphasis on grammar
than reading comprehension and
communicative tasks. He said that owing
to the following factors, teaching English
did not provide the expected aims:
1. Students’ ignorance of aims and
goals of learning a new language
and its advantages
2. Unqualified teachers and lack of
teaching facilities
3. Old methods and styles of teaching
4. Old, unoriginal and out of date
resources
5. Lack of native speakers who have a
good command of English
By going through the literature,
although the good qualities have been
specified, still the problems in EFL
teaching exist, particularly in Iran and
no special article has been conducted in
this regard, investigating the problems
of EFL teaching in secondary schools.
Therefore, in order to decrease these
problems, the goal of this study is to
delve into this matter and investigate the
existing problems in learners, teachers,
textbook, syllabus, and language policy.
This study tried to answer what are
the problems of teaching and learning
English caused by learners, teachers,
textbook, syllabus and language policy.
METHOD
In this study, we are looking for
the problems of teaching and learning
English by a survey. In other words, the
researcher seeks to know the opinions of
students about the problems of teaching
and learning English. One hundred (fifty
male and fifty female) middle school
students were chosen randomly from
the population. The participants in this
study were the third grade students
of two middle schools in Zarrinshahr,
Esfahan.
The instrument of the study
was a self-constructed likert scale
questionnaire (with a Cronbach Alpha
reliability of r = .89 > .8 and based
on George and Mallery (2003), it is
considered to be a good reliability)
which is divided into five parts: The first
part: learner with 7 items, the second
part: teacher with 9 items, the third part:
textbook with 7 items, the fourth part:
syllabus with 7 items, and the fifth part:
language policy with 7 items.
The questionnaire was translated
into the native language of the students,
because it was thought that they would
not understand the items. A pilot study
was conducted. Ten students of the
third grade from Komeil middle school
in Esfahan were randomly selected.
Before doing the task, the items of the
questionnaire were clarified. Twenty
minutes were required to complete the
task. Revisions were made based on
the feedback obtained from the above
procedure. For collecting the data, 2 days
were allocated to go to the two middle
schools mentioned above and administer
the survey.
The analyses were completed
using SPSS 14.0 software (Statistical
Package for the Social Sciences). SPSS
was used to see which factors (i.e.
teacher, learner, textbook, syllabus,
and language policy) and items had
the greatest cause in the problems of
teaching and learning English.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
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The beneath paragraphs will
report the results of the present study
based on the five research questions. The
hypothesis of this study was that each
factor (i.e. learner, teacher, textbook,
syllabus, and language policy) have no
effects on the problems of teaching and
learning English.
According to the first research
question, “What are the problems of
teaching and learning English caused
by learner?, Chi-square on the answers
of one hundred participants to the first
seven items belonging to the first part of
the questionnaire was taken (see table 2).
The results of Item 5 and 7
showed that there are no meaningful
differences between those who agreed,
disagreed and had no idea I5 & I7 (i.e.
I5, I7›0.05), so they are not accepted.
However, the results of the other
items showed that there are meaning
differences among those who agreed,
disagreed and had no idea (i.e. I1, I2,
I3, I4, I6 ‹0.05), so these are accepted.
Based on these results, it can be said
that the system of learning at secondary
schools and not considering per work
important and not having any plans for
it by learners have played a role in the
problems of EFL learning.
Table 2
Test Statistics of Items 1-7
T-test I1 I2 I3 I4 I5 I6 I7
Chi-Square(a,b) 12.200 17.500 26.900 80.000 4.300 21.000 7.300
df 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
Asymp. Sig. .016 .002 .000 .000 .367 .000 .121
Table 3:
Test Statistics
T-test I8 I9 I10 I11 I12 I13 I14 I15 I16
Chi-Square(a,b) 7.100 2.900 48.800 55.300 57.300 2.300 7.700 3.700 39.700
Df 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
Asymp. Sig. .131 .575 .000 .000 .000 .681 .103 .448 .000
According to the second research
question, “What are the problems of
teaching and learning English caused
by teacher? and as shown in table 3,
Chi-square of the second nine items
belonging to the first part of the
questionnaire was taken.
As the table above shows, the
results of Items 8, 9, 13, 14, 15 revealed
that there are not meaning differences
between those who agreed, disagreed,
and had no idea (i.e. I8, I9, I13, I14, I15
›0.05); therefore, these items are avoided.
However, the results of Items 10, 11, 12,
16 revealed that there are significance
differences between those who agreed,
disagreed, and had no idea (i.e. I10, I11,
I12, I16 ‹0.05), so these items are accepted
and considered as problems.
According to the third research
question, “What are the problems of
teaching and learning English caused by
textbook?, the Chi-square of the third seven
items are taken and shown in table 4.
Test Statistics
The results of this part showed
that only in one item, there are no
significance differences between those
who agreed, disagreed, and had no idea
(i.e. I18 ›0.05) so this item is not accepted.
While based on the results, the other
SALOUMEH KHODABAKHSHI & ALI RAHIMI
Investigating the Problems of Teaching and Learning English in Middle Schools in Iran
70
items were significant among those
who agreed, disagreed, and had no idea
(i.e. I17, I19, I20, I21, I22, I23 ‹0.05) thus
these items are considered as problems
of teaching and learning English. In
other words, it can be said that textbook
has a main role in the problems of
EFL learning by not having the above
characteristics.
According to the fourth research
question, “What are the problems of
teaching and learning English caused by
syllabus?, Chi-square of the fourth seven
items are demonstrated in table 5.
As the table above displays, only
the result of one item was not significant
among those who agreed, disagreed, and
had no idea (i.e. I27 ›0.05); therefore, this
item is avoided. However, the results of
the rest items were significant among
those who agreed, disagreed, and had
no idea (I24, I25, I26, I28, I29, I30 ‹0.05)
thus these items are accepted and can
Table 4:
Test statistics
T-test I17 I18 I19 I20 I21 I22 I23
Chi-Square(a,b) 19.600 6.100 118.300 13.700 10.300 11.800 39.100
Df 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
Asymp. Sig. .001 .192 .000 .008 .036 .019 .000
Table 5.
Test Statistics
T-test I24 I25 I26 I27 I28 I29 I30
Chi-Square(a,b) 12.800 37.300 26.000 2.500 34.300 17.100 27.700
Df 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
Asymp. Sig. .012 .000 .000 .645 .000 .002 .000
Table 6
Test Statistics
T-test I31 I32 I33 I34 I35 I36 37I
Chi-Square(a,b) 47.800 12.800 15.400 41.500 38.000 35.100 34.700
Df 4 4 4 4 5 4 4
Asymp. Sig. .000 .012 .004 .000 .000 .000 .000
be considered as the problems. In other
words, it can be said that syllabus also
has a main role in the problems of
EFL learning by not having the above
characteristics as well.
According to the fifth research
question, “What are the problems of
teaching and learning English caused by
language policy?the Chi-square of the
fifth seven items were calculated and are
shown in table 6.
Based on the table above, the results
of all the items of this part showed
meaningful differences among those
who agreed, disagreed, and had no idea
(i.e. I31, I32, I33, I34, I35, I36, I37 <0.05);
therefore, these items are accepted.
In other words, it can be stated that
Language Policy has also a main role
in the problems of EFL teaching, due
to the meaningful difference of the all
items concerning this variable and not
following these issues mentioned above.
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CONCLUSION
This study provided the ways
a researcher can come across to the
existing problems in EFL teaching and
by conducting this, we can gain the
knowledge of which variable has more
effect on these problems and after that
trying to do something in order to solve
these problems. Based on the results, the
hypothesis of the study was rejected;
therefore, now one can take action in
dissolving these problems by making use
of the reasonable findings in this study.
The problems specified in learner
were that they do not consider pair
work important and do not have any
plans for it. We should change the way
the learner thinks of pair work and
seeking to show them how important
pair work can be even in the schools not
only in private institutes. The problems
in teacher were not speaking in English
in the classroom most of the times, not
asking the students to speak in English
as much as possible, not using computer
(e.g. PowerPoint software) in teaching,
not paying attention to the students’
correct pronunciation. The problems
which syllabus leads to were the fact that
most teachers do not provide students
with the syllabus at the first or second
session of the semester, they do not
follow their syllabus till the end of the
educational year, students do not think
the syllabus is well organized, it does
not include movies and listening apart
from other planning, does not include
one or two projects for students apart
from the midterm or final test, does not
mention the deadline of the projects. If
language policy accepts to help teachers
in any way, the problems which they
cause would be reduced and they would
alter their approaches in teaching and in
bringing their syllabus to the class and
trying to consider teaching in schools as
seriously as possible. Language policy
should accompany in this process and
revise the textbook and do its best to
afford money for using technology in
English classrooms and selecting the
most proficient English teachers.
For further research, the researchers
can include the opinions of the teachers,
language policy, and textbook writers
as well in order to gain more precious
results and take actions in solving
the problems. Of course, they should
know the limitations here, which can
refer to the fact that all schools would
not welcome the researchers gladly
thus one must go to the Department of
Education to get the authority for going
to the expected schools and administer
the questionnaire or any other sorts of
survey.
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