The theory which has been put forward by the authors of this study seeks to shed light on the current situation of language learning in public and private language schools in Iran. Based on the socio-imposed theory of language proficiency, there are two types of definitions for language proficiency: psychological and sociological. Psychological definitions deal with the psychological reality of language proficiency and the way language learning occurs; however, the sociological definitions of language proficiency, which are seen mostly in centripetal education, deal with the way each society dictates its learners how to learn a language. In fact, the theory is to show that even the definition of language proficiency is not value-free. The theory hypothesizes that if there is a mismatch between the psychological and sociological definitions of language proficiency, learners may get demotivated and solidify a negative attitude towards learning another language. In this study, we intend first to explicate the newly-proposed socio-imposed theory of language proficiency, and then to analyze the formal and informal situations of language learning in Iran in the light of the theory.

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