what do iranian eap specialists perceive? a critical evaluation of 'personnel policy' in iranian eap program from specialists’ perspectives

'personnel policy', as one of the seven dimensions of kaplan and baldauf's (2005) language-in-education policy and planning (lepp) framework, deals specifically with the requirements of teachers’ selection, employment, training, and their language proficiency standards in a language program. due to the significant position and undeniable function of teachers in iranian english for academic purposes (eap) program, which suffers from serious shortcomings in different levels from policy to practice, the researchers attempted to critically appraise the personnel policy components from the perspectives of iranian eap specialists. in doing so, six eap specialists were interviewed and the data were analyzed and codified qualitatively to present their views on the defined components of the personnel policy. based on the views which are described and analyzed in the paper, it was found that eap program in iran has not yet developed any standards for the employment and training of skilled eap teachers, and they emphasized on the necessity of developing such yardsticks. moreover, it is maintained that communication links between the existing eap language and content teachers are missing at the present time. the specialists believed that since these two groups are equivocal about the eap policies and objectives, they usually act based on their own intuitions and common sense of what is the best practice of eap. based on the implications of the study, the first and foremost step toward the success of the iranian eap program would be the development of a centralized language management system in higher education in order to manage eap teachers’ employment, education and specialization in both content and language proficiency. moreover, organizing pre-service and in-service eap teacher programs on both theory and practice of eap for both groups is deemed to be necessary.