evaluating the status of narratives among english teachers in academic context

Utilizing narratives in language teaching and learning is a widely accepted approach. however, in iranian efl context little attention has been paid to narratives as a pedagogical approach, especially in higher education. considering the fact that having the ability to construct powerful, impactful, and meaningful narratives is one form of power and pivotal role of narratives in conveying moral and social values along with linguistic knowledge, this article reports the findings of a survey, conducted among general english language teachers in a female-only state university to evaluate the implantation of narratives by teachers in their teaching. the results indicated that majority of the teachers did implement narratives while teaching once or twice per month and those who did not use a specific textbook in their teaching tended to use storytelling techniques more frequently than those who use a specific textbook. although majority of the participants who took part in this study were aware of the importance of narratives in language teaching, more research has to be conducted in this field as to the determination of the criteria for narrative selection, narration techniques as well as activities conducted after narrations. the paper suggests guidelines to address such issues at the end.