The Effect of Foreign Language Teaching on the Promotion of Public Education Teachers' Social Capital: An Empirical Phenomenological Approach

Recent Local and global studies unanimously recognize the significance of social capital in resolving the challenges of public education in post-Pandemic era. The majority of these studies confirm the increasing and decreasing effect of social capital on the educational community. The present paper has looked at this phenomenon from a new perspective and has sought to investigate the effect of language teaching on the promotion of social capital. To this end, adopting a phenomenological approach, we sought an in-depth and critical understanding of the positive effect of foreign language teaching on the development of Iranian teachers' social capital. The premise was that teachers would use their foreign language learning knowledge, skills, and attitudes – from among the available factors – to improve their and their audiences’ social capital. To collect data, eleven public school teachers serving in the state-run schools of Tehran participated in responding to the questionnaires and attending a semi-structured interview. To validate the data, 9 expert professors in the field of teacher training were selected through purposive sampling, whose ideas were sought up to the theoretical saturation level. Then, the collected data were transcribed, coded, and analyzed. As a result of the data analysis, “the overall model of the effectiveness of teaching foreign languages on the improvement of teachers’ social capital” emerged in the form of the three categories of individual effect, group-organizational effect, and social and supra-organizational effect, along with 18 main themes and 57 sub-themes. Based on the results of the analysis, the direct and indirect effects of foreign language teaching and learning on strengthening the social capital of teachers appeared in five arenas, namely promoting scientific and cultural participation; developing social network; promoting the sense of individual, collective, and national security; adopting self-initiation in empowerment and promotion of individual-professional identity; and promoting the intercultural and transnational awareness. Based on the attained results, it is suggested that the teachings and concerns of foreign language teaching related to the enhancement and improvement of teachers’ social capital should be observed in order to compensate for the challenges of education during the Pandemic – especially in training new teachers and in-service training courses. Moreover, these teachings and concerns need to be regarded in planning, policymaking, and evolution of the curriculum.