When to Start Teaching English? A Comparative Study of English Language Policymaking in Iran and Asian Nations

One key dimension of language-in-education policymaking is the onset age of foreign, essentially English, language education. Motivated by advantages associated with English knowledge, there is a growing trend worldwide to include English in primary school curricula and lower the age of its learning. The age at which Iranian students begin learning English formally has been contentious for post-Revolutionary Iran. The paper intends to examine Iranian English policymaking vis-à-vis its start age at de-jure level by macro-level stakeholders in Iran’s Ministry of Education and similar state bodies and compare it with similar educational planning in several Asian nations (South Korea, Japan, China, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and Vietnam). Interviews, official documents, and archived online data were used. To analyze data, content analysis was employed. Findings suggest that Asian nations make explicit policy statements pertaining to neoliberal globalization agendas, deem English communication skills as part of human capital and lower the age of English education to address the English needs of their respective nations. This policy has been accelerated by an explosive social demand for English. Results also indicate that despite similar yet implicit globalization goals in macro-level documents and a similar social demand, Iranian English policymaking is torn between politico-ideological imperatives and an expendable and unwarranted pressure dyed as professional advice with the former winning over the latter which, in turn, leads to delayed English education. The paper ends with an account of the consequences of late English education policy in Iran.