Page 3 - بررسی و شناسایی روش‌ها و رویکردهای کارآمد آموزش زبان‎فارسی برای اهداف عمومی زبان آموزان غیر‌ایرانی

interactional view, proprietary methods, and other.) investigating the participants' attitudes
toward the employment of 22 existing language teaching methods and approaches. Cronbach's
alpha test was used to estimate the consistency of the items in the questionnaire; the test provided
us with coefficient reliability of 0.931, indicating the adequate efficiency of the questionnaire.

The results showed that the participants generally favored 16 (out of 22) teaching methods and
approchs among which "teacher-oriented and appropriate to class conditions," "communicative",
"audio lingual", "task-based" and"natural approach" were ranked from the first to fifth positions
respectively; in their perspectives, the principles of these five methods could be used for teaching
Persian Language for general purposes. The results of the t-test showed that the methods of
"teaching dogmatic language," "Pimsler," "Michael Thomas," and learning by teaching were not
useful in designing and developing resources for teaching Persian language for general purposes.

It is well accepted that practical teaching skills and methods are considered very significant in
the language teaching profession, and the learning will not be realized if an appropriate
methodology is not followed in teaching the language. In addition to classical ones, there are
some new empirically-based methods for language instruction characterized by some particular
strengths and weaknesses. The methods are expected to have corresponded with the language
learners and learning content; from this perspective, the teacher's teaching skills are a set of
various factors being in line with human being characteristics; the important teaching skills could
be highly significant in stimulating the students' motivation. Generally, the language teaching
methods should be exclusively dynamic, appealing, and influential since the lack of these
characteristics may make the teaching activities highly annoying, seriously demotivating Persian
language learners in the long run.

Some language teachers may prefer and follow teacher-centered methods based on the class
environment. This group of instructors probably believes that teachers are not required to follow
the most appropriate language teaching methods. Instead, they argue that the language teachers
need to be sufficiently familiar with the characteristics of the existing methods. It is, in this case,
that they can benefit methods based on the wants and needs of the students as well as the factors
in the teaching contexts. In other words, these teachers assert that educational context and
students' cognitive condition that encourage the teachers to choose a specific appropriate teaching
method or approach. In fact, in this way, the teacher connects his/her methodological perspective
to the method-oriented world to make sound pedagogical decisions in challenging situations

Textbooks, considered as the most essential and fundamental educational resource for
language learners, could quickly reflect language teaching methods. Given this issue in mind,
Persian language textbooks could adequately make the appropriate principles of a sound method
explicit. That is, effort should be practiced to upgrade the content of Persian language textbooks
making it sufficiently influential in teaching and learning the Persian language. The Current and
available textbooks have been organized based on the principles of traditional language teaching
schools, and, therefore, a serious revision is warranted to modify or alternate the contents of these
language textbooks. Persian language practitioners might pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses
of the available course books for further modification practices to make these educational
materials considerably contributive in teaching and learning the Persian language.

Language teachers following a specific teaching method will not be significantly successful in
achieving their educational goals. Language instruction is equivalent to time management, and
Persian language instructors are required to be familiar with all methods and approaches so that
they can benefit the principles upon the situation factors making the learning process adequately
meaningful, successful, and sustainable by Persian language learners.

Key words: Language Teaching Method, Language Teaching Approach, Language
Skills, Persian Language Teaching for General Purposes.