Writing a textbook for Persian language is a rather new trend in the field. There exist quite a number of invaluable works by the pioneers of the field. Nevertheless, like any other discipline, the writing of Persian language textbooks is a developing field, which needs to be visited and revisited. The purpose of this study is to give a background about available textbooks on the market and compare them with other second/foreign language textbooks written mostly for European languages, like English and French.
The main focus of the study is on three major domains: (1) the linguistic foundations on the basis of which these textbooks were written, (2) the applied linguistic theories on the basis of which the exercises were developed, and (3) the methodological concepts on the basis of which the tasks and activities were chosen. These discussions will be general, and not towards one single textbook.
Once the foundational issues are discussed, some general theoretical concepts on second/foreign language learning and teaching will be introduced. Some factors in this discussion include the contrastive analysis between the first and the second language and the effect of the first language on the second language. This will be illustrated with examples from the two languages as well as from the students’ errors.
This section will be followed by the tasks that the educators can use to bridge the theoretical agenda with the actual intended content and context. In this section, different language learning skills will be discussed, and various tasks that can be included to serve the purpose of bringing the theory into practice will be introduced.
Finally, different methodological hints will be introduced in order to help the educators take the role of the facilitators rather than lecturers in the class. This is especially important because we are mostly concerned with teaching Persian outside the Persian-speaking countries, and the only chance that students have to practice the target language is in the classroom setting. For this reason, it is imperative to choose tasks and activities that are conducive to the target language use by the students. In addition, the contents of the contexts are extremely important and can be geared towards subject-matter contents, such as politics, media, literature, art, history, etc.
Persian language pedagogy studies are a new discipline, and any textbook or research in this field will benefit Persian language educators as well as Persian language learners.
