Strategies for Teaching Persian Alphabet to non-Persian Speakers from the Perspective of Teachers

Teaching phoneme and writing in any language is the most important part of language learning; because if the learner learns a phoneme incorrectly, both in the reading and writing stages, he will no longer be able to read and write correctly. Considering the importance of the alphabet of a language in the early stages of learning a second / foreign language and its fundamental role in teaching that language, the purpose of this paper is to examine the existing methods related to how to teach the Persian alphabet and writing. To this end, two research questions were posed: 1. Has sufficient attention been paid to the direct teaching of the alphabet in teaching Persian as a second language or not? 2. From the point of view of Persian language teachers, what is the best way to teach the Persian alphabet to non-Persian speakers? To answer these questions, a questionnaire with 16 items was designed and provided to Persian language teachers. The findings show the importance of learning sounds more than learning lines. Based on the data analysis, it is found that at the beginning of Persian classes, it is better to teach the alphabet with high-frequency letters and then with high-frequency and practical vocabulary. Furthermore, the teachers' opinion was that the use of the alphabet board has a positive effect in teaching the alphabet to non-Persian speakers, and teaching short and long vowels together in a training session can somehow help non-Persian speakers in learning. The next point that can be combined in a training session is the teaching of similar letters that the only difference being the way and number of punctuation.