What it means
تدریس (tadris) means the act of teaching, formal instruction, or the profession of being an educator. It is borrowed directly from Arabic تَدْرِيس (tadrīs), the verbal noun of the Form II verb darrasa meaning to teach or to cause to study, from the root D-R-S. That same root gives Persian درس (dars, lesson), مدرسه (madrese, school), and مدرس (modarres, instructor). In daily speech, Iranians more often say درس دادن (dars dadan, to give a lesson) for informal teaching, while تدریس carries academic and professional weight. You would use تدریس on a curriculum vitae, in a job description, or when describing a professor’s career. A close synonym in formal contexts is آموزش (amuzesh), which is broader and covers all types of education and training.
How to use it
- او ده سال تجربه تدریس داره. (u dah sal tajrobe-ye tadris dare.) “She has ten years of teaching experience.”
- تدریس زبان فارسی کار آسونی نیست. (tadris-e zaban-e farsi kar-e asuni nist.) “Teaching the Persian language is not an easy job.”
- استاد تدریسش رو خیلی جدی میگیره. (ostad tadrisash ro kheili jeddi migire.) “The professor takes his teaching very seriously.”
- بعد از بازنشستگی به تدریس ادامه داد. (bad az bazneshastegi be tadris edame dad.) “After retirement she continued teaching.”
Cultural note
In Iranian academic culture, تدریس is more than a job title. It describes a vocation with deep roots in Islamic scholarly tradition, where the modarres (teacher) was a central figure in the madrasa system long before modern universities existed. The word carries that historical weight into contemporary usage, which is why professors and researchers prefer تدریس over the more neutral درس دادن when describing their professional work. In teacher certification and university hiring, تدریس is the standard term in all official documentation.