MANAGING A KAZAKH LANGUAGE IMMERSION PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION IN THE KINDERGARTEN IN KAZAKHSTAN: PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES

Abstract

In the 20th century the Russian language became widespread in the territory of Kazakhstan because the Soviet authorities pursued the Russification policy there. It has resulted Russian to have enshrined as “the language of interethnic communication”. But even after Kazakhstan’s acquisition of sovereignty, a lot of Kazakhs themselves speak only the Russian language, therefore now the Kazakh government began to provide comprehensive support for the preservation of the Kazakh language. To fulfill that they introduced a Kazakh language immersion program in preschool level. And since it is a newly adopted program in Kazakhstan, it was important to study the effectiveness of its management. This research attempted to explore the kindergarten administrators’ or teachers’ perceptions of the implementation and management of the program, as well as the obstacles that come with it. There was studied an exploratory case in one kindergarten in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, and the data were collected using two instruments such as interviews and document analysis. To identify how effectively the management practices are being implemented, the results were aligned with the program principles adopted from the document by Howard et al. (2018). So, the leaders’ advocacy and their support in professional development were identified as exemplary practices, whereas “the family learning activities”, “program staff selection” and “program’s alignment with its goals” were aligned partially with the program principles. To urge specific actions for the improvement of the program implementation I suggested a few recommendations: 1). to make the family learning activities plan which is up to date and relevant to the current updates and schedule learning activities for parents more frequently. 2). To introduce appropriate procedures of raising awareness activities for new teachers, screening, and stimulus (stipends for program teachers) for them. 3). To switch the partial model to the total one from the earliest stage of the program, then little by little introduce Russian from the second year of study.