فرهاد مظلوم زوارق

Language-in-education planning is a multifaceted enterprise encompassing access, curriculum, resourcing, personnel, methods and materials, evaluation and community policymaking (Kaplan & Baldauf, 2003). Given that successful implementation of any language planning initiative relies on careful examination of each domain, it is important to systematically address each planning goal vis-à-vis Russian in Iran if the recent ‘end English monopoly’ agenda is to move beyond ministerial and de-jure level rhetoric. The community policymaking concerns who is(not) consulted in the decision making process and the extent a tentative language plan enjoys the support of bottom-up stakeholders. In this study, I report some findings of a large-scale study regarding community policymaking of the Russian language in Iran. Four-hundred eighty-seven parents and adult students answered a questionnaire asking them to rank order their language choice preference (English, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, French, German, Spanish and Italian). Results indicated that Russian ranked fifth followed by Arabic, Chinese and Italian. Findings are used to argue that since Iranian de-facto invisible planners follow a different language planning trajectory couched in primarily utilitarian rationales, prospects for non-consultative Russian-as-a-foreign-language plan remain bleak unless benefits accrued to Russian are brought to surface.