current status of english instruction at medical universities in iran: zooming in on teachers

Introduction: english language is now an indispensable part of higher education, and a good command of english, like in many parts around the globe, is of special importance for iranian university students who want to continue their education toward a higher degree. yet, the english language instruction they receive after entering university throughout their studies is in need of constant investigation and improvement.materials and methods: the present survey study tried to examine the current status of the english language courses and their instructors in the iranian universities of medical sciences in different cities of the country nationwide using questionnaires.results: regarding course instructors, of a total of 485 english language instructors at 31 universities of medical sciences, only 61 (12.57%) were english language faculty members. the remaining 424 (87.43%) instructors were either medical specialists who taught english language courses (191; 39.3%) or non-faculty part-time (guest) lecturers (233; 48%). as for the courses, a significant number of esap (499 credits; 39.5%) and general english (61 credits; 5.15%) course credits were taught by medically-oriented faculty members (content specialists).conclusion: the results highlight the need to assess the quality of eap instruction in iran through drawing on multiple sources of data and taking into account the perspectives of all the stakeholders, especially those of the students.