Abstract:
Trilingual education is one of the drastic reforms in education in the Republic of
Kazakhstan that aims at shaping a future generation fluent in Kazakh, Russian and English.
Although such initiative appears important, studies say that stakeholders’ perceptions of
trilingual education may impact the way they practice it in their domains, thus, there is a
need to study these perceptions to ensure a successful implementation of the reform. The
purpose of the study was to explore various groups of stakeholders’ perceptions and
practices of trilingual education in a rural school in Almaty Oblast. The study sought
answers to the research questions regarding stakeholders’ perceptions, practices in different
domains and similarities and/or differences in their perceptions of trilingual education. The
study applied a qualitative case study design with semi-structured interviews as data
collection instrument. The sample included ten participants from the following groups of
stakeholders: parents, teachers and administrators. The findings revealed that the
stakeholders’ perceptions of trilingual education vary from understanding it mostly as the
teaching of English to the teaching of three languages or teaching in three languages. As
for the language use, the triangulated data uncovered that all three languages were used
within their domains, though Russian was neglected in certain levels. From the study
findings, it is possible to conclude that the application of triangulation of data sources:
parents, teachers and administrators was beneficial because it disclosed insights into the
way how trilingual education is differently perceived and practiced by various groups of
stakeholders. Thereby, there is an urgent need for creating efficient communication and
information channels between policy-makers and schools, between parents and schools to
explain trilingual education and its implementation processes.