Over the past 25 years, autonomy has been a popular focus for discussion and increasingly influential in foreign Language education. Most research is concentrated on learner autonomy, while teacher autonomy has been seriously neglected. Recently, however, researchers and experts have realized that to enhance learner autonomy, we must enhance teacher autonomy (e.g., Benson 2000; Little 1995; Little, Ridley & Ushioda 2003; McGrath 2000; Thavenius 1999). Teacher autonomy is now recognized as an important factor that affects the development of learner autonomy in foreign language education. However, it is very difficult for teachers to develop autonomy in the classroom especially when learners are used to traditional methods and techniques that teachers play the main role. The concepts of teacher autonomy and learner autonomy have been introduced and widely discussed as the learning responsibility of learners has been paid more attention to so as to improve the learning autonomy in SLA. Therefore, a comprehensive discussion of teacher autonomy and learner autonomy is of utmost importance to foster a better understanding and application of learning autonomy. Autonomy becomes a need for language learners and a must for language teachers who play a key role in developing learners’ autonomy.

The aim of this article is to confirm the importance of ethical dimension in the fields concerning the teaching and learning of foreign languages. This ethical dimension might be intimately related in a complex way to several specific areas on the part of teachers and learners. In fact, it is legitimized to insist on the importance of the ethical components of foreign language education because of the ethical nature of human communication and natural language in general. To underline the ethical nature of language, the author refers to the profound thoughts of the French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. In such way, this study pursues two joint objectives providing a humanistic overview of the reflection carried out on the question of ethics in the didactics of foreign languages in the first place, and formulating a few proposals for developing this reflection in the second place. Our historical analysis has allowed us to illustrate the fact that the question of ethics in the teaching and learning of foreign languages is traditionally based on a maximalist conception of morality, as well as a political project far removed from the actual practices of language teachers. removed from the actual practices of language teachers. removed from the actual practices of language teachers.

Teaching foreign languages has a long, extended history. Ever Since man needed to communicate with other nations, the teaching of a foreign language gained a marked significance. By the end of the 18th century, after the industrial revolution, learning a foreign language and therefore teaching it became even more important. As in teaching a language the main goal is to enable learners to read, write, speak, and comprehend in that language, then studying the factors that have a key role in helping learners and improving their skills becomes more significant than before. Teaching a foreign language is almost impossible if we do not take cultural aspects into consideration. Therefore, we are required to familiarize learners with the culture of the target language community. For this purpose, cinema has been used and referred to as one of the important means for reflecting the culture of the community that speaks a special language.

Acknowledging the strengths of the national curriculum, the present study aimed at evaluating its approach towards foreign language education from three perspectives: (1) analyzing the foreign language section of the national curriculum based on the methodological and theoretical underpinnings, and its internal consistency, (2) examining its content based on the basic assumptions mentioned in the literature for setting foreign language policies and (3) evaluating its content based on the macro-documents of the country. In so doing, first, the relevant sections of the national curriculum were analyzed. The results indicated that, although the foreign language section of the national curriculum has some strengths such as a move toward decentralization and increase in hours of instruction, it suffers from some weaknesses such as vagueness of the content and lack of consistency and connection among the aims of the instruction. In order to examine the document from the second perspective, 6 criteria that foreign language education policies should follow were extracted from the relevant literature, and the document was evaluated based on these criteria. The results indicated both consistencies and inconsistencies between the content of the document with these principles. The national curriculum, then, was evaluated to find its matches and mismatches with the policies and orientations of macro-documents. The results indicated that the foreign language section of the national curriculum cannot set the ground for achieving the goals proposed in the macro-documents of the country.  Finally, the paper offers some guidelines for developing national English language curriculum.

Culture is an indispensable part of Foreign Language Education Policy (FLEP), especially in English Language Teaching (ELT). In addition, the spread of English around the globe has resulted in English users‟,tendency to embed their local culture in their English communication (Kirkpatrick, 2012). However, literature remains silent on culture representation in FLEP, especially in an ideologized country like Iran. To address this issue, due to lack of an explicit FLEP in Iran, the present study analyzed the cultural schemas addressed in the seven major national policy documents of Iran, namely 20-year National Vision, Comprehensive Science Roadmap, Support for Comprehensive Science Roadmap in the Domain of Languages, Cultural Engineering Document, National Curriculum, Fundamental Reform in Education, and Islamicization of Universities. Results of content analysis using MAXQDA Software unmasked Islamic-Iranian culture as the baseline for ELT in Iran. In order to further examine the representations and implications of „, Islamic-Iranian culture‟,hidden in the documents, open coding, axial coding, and labeling along with constant comparative procedure revealed various Islamic cultural schemas. However, very few instances of Iranian cultural schemas were unveiled. The findings were discussed in light of the hidden curriculum and the power relations behind the extracted cultural schemas.

Teacher factors encompass the teachers’ cognitive and affective characteristics that are likely to affect their instructional efficacy. Language teacher immunity is one of the affective factors that determines the teachers’ psychological well-being in their settings. The present study strived to itemize the factors in novice and experienced EFL instructors’ teacher immunity philosophy. To this end, first, the researchers used convenience sampling for selecting 62 EFL teachers including 38 novice and 24 experienced teachers at ten prominent language institutes in Tabriz (Iran) as the participants. Second, they conducted 30-minute interviews with the participants for determining the factors that influenced their TI philosophy using a researcher-developed semi-structured interview protocol. Lastly, they used thematic analysis in order to particularize the main factors in their teacher immunity philosophy. The findings of the study indicated that while the novice teachers considered external support as the main factor in their philosophy, the experienced teachers regarded their internal strength as the decisive factor that influenced their teacher immunity philosophy. The findings may have practical implications for teacher education courses in foreign language contexts.