Language Related Research E-ISSN: 2383-0816 Vol.11, No.4 (Tome 58), September, October & November 2020 669 T. M .U. A Critical Evaluation of the New English Language Program in the National System from the Perspective of ELT Curriculum Specialists: The Language-in- education Policy and Planning Framework Hossein Davari 1 *, Abutaleb Iranmehr 2 , Seyyed Behnam Alavi Moghaddam 3 , & Saeed Nourzadeh 4 1. Assistant Professor, English Department, Damghan University, Damghan, Iran. 2. Assistant Professor, English Department, Shahroud University of Technology, Shahroud, Iran. 3. Associate Professor, Organization for Educational Research and Planning, Tehran, Iran. 4. Assistant Professor of English Language Teaching, Department of English, Damghan University, Damghan, Iran Abstract After the approval of the Document on the Fundamental Transformation of Education and the implementation of the National Curriculum, we have witnessed the implementation of a new curriculum on English in the education system. The program, with a change in the teaching approach, as well as the preparation and compilation of newly developed textbooks, has had a major difference with the previous traditional and inefficient program. Due to the fact that practically all first and second levels of high school textbooks have been developed and taught, the necessity of critical analysis and evaluation of the program, with due attention to its strengths and weaknesses from different perspectives is inevitable. To achieve this, the present paper, using the language-in-education policy and planning framework and through a qualitative analysis has attempted to assess and analyze the new English language program, through delving into attitudes of five experts in the field of English language planning. The findings indicate that the new program, along with its strengths, suffers from deficiencies in teacher education, curriculum period, and especially student evaluation; such Received: 29/01/2019 Accepted: 9/07/2019 * Corresponding Author's E-mail: h.davari@du.ac.ir Downloaded from lrr.modares.ac.ir at 18:52 IRST on Sunday November 22nd 2020