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Persian Language Instruction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 March 2016
Extract
This survey of Persian language instruction in the United States and Canada does not pretend to be exhaustive in coverage, or to present the most up-to-date and complete information in all aspects. A questionnaire was sent in June 1971 to some 28 institutions of higher learning where Persian was known or suspected to be taught at the time. It was divided into 8 sections, each containing a number of specific questions. The section headings were: I. Background Information; II. Objectives of Persian-Language Teaching; III. Teaching Methods; IV. Teaching Materials; V. Teaching Staff; VI. Degrees and Curricula; VII. Applied Research; VIII. Recommendations and General Evaluation. The list of the institutions was compiled from various sources, including MESA bulletins.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Middle East Studies Association of North America 1972
References
Footnotes
1 The scope and organization of this survey was worked out in conjunction with Professor Abboud, Peter F., whose survey of Arabic language instruction appeared in the MESA Bulletin, Vol. 5, No. 2 (May 1, 1971), pp. 1–23Google Scholar. In the course of preparing the survey, I made a few changes, primarily to make it better suit the Persian situation. I have also tried to avoid repeating certain comments in Dr. Abboud’s paper which are equally, or more or less, applicable to the Persian teaching field, though some repetition was unavoidable.
2 I should like to acknowledge here the assistance of all those who responded to my request for information.
3 The terms “approach” and “method” are often used in discussions of language teaching interchangeably, but would be more useful, and would help avoid at least some difficulties in discussion, if used for designating two separate concepts, as suggested by Anthony, E. M., in his “Approach, Method, and Technique,” in English Language Teaching, XVII (1963), pp. 63–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar. At least in parts of the present statement the term “approach” (which Anthony uses in a sense broader than “method”) would be more appropriate, but I have not always followed his very sensible suggestions, mostly because “method” is used among Persianists (and others for that matter) far more commonly.
4 Two cases in point are the FSI textbooks in the various languages, prepared in the 1950’s, and the series of English For Foreigners textbooks published by the American Council of Learned Societies, including English For Iranians, by Paper, H. H. and Jazayery, M. A. (Washington, D. C. 1955)Google Scholar.
5 By far the largest number of textbooks used in the schools returning the questionnaire were to teach reading, and a few grammars. Only four were specifically designed to teach spoken Persian, and these were used in one school each. One of the latter books is a nineteenth-century publication. Three individual-author books were used; otherwise the readers were anthologies, including Iranian school books.
6 A report on this Workshop, which had been preceded by three similar workshops on Arabic teaching, and one on Turkish, was prepared by H. H. Paper, who acted as Director, and Donald L. Stilo, the Secretary, but, to my knowledge, has not been widely published.
7 The term “applied linguistics” for this purpose is even more objectionable today, because, as a result of changing attitudes and foci among linguists, most of what used to be called just “linguistics” (including analyses of languages) should now more properly be called “applied linguistics,” since, to many,.the major concern of theoretical or “pure” linguistics, is, broadly put, that which “lies behind” language and languages as manifested in their structures.
8 Professor Young was kind enough to make a copy of his study available to me in the summer of 1962.
9 On this, see Abboud’s paper (cited in footnote 1), Section 6.
10 These figures are taken from Kant, Julia G., “Foreign Language Registrations in Institutions of Higher Education, Fall 1968,” Foreign Language Annals, Vol. 3 (1969), pp. 247–304CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Persian is not listed in the chart on page 250, nor is Yiddish. The registration figure for Yiddish (109) is given in the statement preceding the chart; that for Persian (181) was arrived at by adding the figures given in Table 17 (on pp. 282–297) for each of the 11 universities included in the survey where Persian was taught. These institutions are listed in Table 18, on p. 301. The figure for “registration” in each case seems to be equal to the number of students multiplied by semester credit hours for each course. The figure given for Persian in Texas is slightly below what it actually was. Figures for other schools (and languages) may also include errors, but perhaps not very drastic ones.
11 I use “contemporary” here, rather than “modern” which is often used, because the latter is used in linguistic terminology to refer to what is sometimes called “Islamic” Persian. The more appropriate term “contemporary,” as a technical term, was first used, or at least given status by Lazard, G., who used it, or rather its French counterpart, in his book, Grammaire du persan contemporain (Paris, 1957)Google Scholar.