Authentic or not? A Case Study on the Role of Authenticity in English Language Teaching in Iran

The present article arises from a three-year cross sectional investigation into English Language Teaching (ELT) in secondary schools in Iran and the role of Communicative Pedagogy within this. The study has examined the extent of communicative pedagogy within the Iranian national ELT curriculum, the ELT programme and to some extent the English language coursebooks used in secondary schools. What is going to be done therefore is looking at one aspect of the study which is the role of authenticity in the above mentioned system. In order to investigate the situation, varieties of research instruments were applied in order to collect valid and reliable data. These instruments were mainly composed of a review of literature, a desk based analysis of the curriculum, administering questionnaires as well as conducting interview sessions. The questionnaires were mainly distributed among English language teachers and the interviews were conducted with some authors of the curriculum, textbooks and English language teachers in the Islamic Republic of Iran. It will be explained while the issue of authenticity has been addressed and considered within the newly designed national curriculum in Iran, this issue appears to play no role in either the textbooks or the English language teaching programme.