Elementary School Teachers’ Life Experience with the Challenges of Teaching in Farsi in Bilingual Areas

Elementary School Teachers’ Life Experience with the Challenges of Teaching in Farsi in Bilingual Areas   M. Ghaaderi, Ph.D.* K. Bolandhemmataan, Ph.D.** F. Havaasbeigi*** S. Babakaani****   To identify the challenges facing elementary school teachers in teaching bilingual students in Farsi, a group of 31 such teachers (14 of them men) ages 28-43 and 5-29 years of teaching experience, were interviewed on their experiences related to the said challenge. The so collected narratives were coded and analyzed. Findings are indicative of teachers having many difficulties while teaching in Farsi as the textbooks have a fundamental problem and that is being written in standard Farsi with no attention given to the local languages which are quite diverse across the country. This has led to the confusion of students matching their language to one that they have not used before. Students do not comprehend the texts that well and as a result cannot use them correctly. The respondents are of the opinion that combining local languages with the standard Farsi not only does not decrease the value of the official language, but improves its learning too. The use of these findings in writing textbooks and in teacher training programs would be advantageous.   Keywords: teaching, language, Farsi, bilingualism, children     _______________________ Date received: May 23, 2016                   Date accepted: Apr. 12, 2017 *Associate Professor of Curriculum Studies, Allameh Tabataba’i University (Corresponding Author). [email protected] **Assistant Professor of  Philosophy of Education, University of Kordestan. [email protected] ***Doctoral Student in Curriculum Studies, Allameh Tabataba’i University. [email protected] ****M.A. in Curriculum Studies, University of Kordestan. [email protected]