Evaluating the Curricula of Centers of Teaching Persian to non-Persian Speakers from the Learner's Perspective

A prerequisite for designing an efficient and successful curriculum is the analysis of learning/teaching environment and the analysis of the learner’s needs and goals. The results of these analyses are vital for determining the content of instructional resources and adopting appropriate instructional procedures and processes. In many language teaching centers, there is usually no opportunity to carry out such analyses. In such conditions, the best option is to conduct periodic curriculum evaluation. Curriculum evaluation has various dimensions of which evaluation of the learner satisfaction is of special importance. In the present study, we tried to evaluate learner satisfaction in two Persian language teaching centers: Dehkhoda (affiliated to Tehran University) and Almahdi (affiliated to Almostafa Open University). For this purpose, a questionnaire was designed which drew on Bailey's (2009) criteria and some other criteria developed in educational psychology. The criteria included the understandability of learning materials, attention to formative assessment, attention to L1 of the learners, the curriculum flexibility, appropriateness of the curriculum to learner conditions, enjoyability of learning materials, attention to learner's present and future needs, and apprpriatenes of the curriculum to the learner's age. 80 Persian learners answered the questionnaire. Results indicated that, in the two centers, the learner's satisfaction of content and curriculum was nearly 50 percent. Nation and Macalister's (2010) curriculum development model was consulted to offer suggestions for the improvement of curricula of Persian language teaching centers.