a comparative study on the use of teaching aids in iranian efl institutes and schools

this study aimed to investigate the possible differences between the iranian efl institutes and public secondary schools in the extent and frequency of use of teaching aids and the way of use of them. to achieve the aim of the study, the mixed-methods approach was used to collect the required data. therefore, 20 efl teachers were randomly sampled from 5 purposefully selected efl institutes and 20 from 8 purposefully selected public secondary schools to answer a checklist involving the prevalent teaching aids and the frequency of use of them. then, 5 sessions of the efl classes in each of the educational contexts were observed to verify the efl teachers’ answers to the checklists and to examine the way of use of teaching aids in the two contexts, as well. the analysis of the data using the mann- whitney u test indicated that, the efl teachers in the efl institutes used higher range of teaching aids with higher frequency of use than those in the public secondary schools, thus the research only null hypothesis was rejected. moreover, using the rich descriptive data, it was also indicated that they used teaching aids more effectively, as well. however, the results also revealed that neither the efl institute teachers nor the public secondary school teachers used a good range of teaching aids, especially the technological aids, with high rates of use in the most effective ways in line with the communicative goals of english language teaching and learning. accordingly, it was recommended that all the efl teachers should feel responsible and use various types of teaching aids as much as possible effectively.