Trilingual education in Kazakhstan: challenges for secondary school teachers

Abstract

This paper focuses on problems of implementation of trilingual education policy, taking the perspective of teachers as the main agents of change in classroom environment. The policy is one of the directives of “100 concrete steps” national plan, which implies development of Kazakh language, support of Russian language and introduction of English language into the secondary school system of Kazakhstan. This study discussed the challenges and obstacles teachers face due to implementation of the trilingual education reform as well as explores their attitude to it. It tries to address the current problem that teachers’ voice and needs are frequently left unheard in policy design and decision-making processes. The research is based on interviews with 20 teachers from Kazakh and Russian-language schools in the capital city Astana, provincial town Stepnogorsk and rural area Aksu. The respondents are directly affected by the policy and will change their language of instruction to a different one. The main finding of the research is that in general teachers are positive about trilingual education policy and support it, because they view it as a necessary step in the development of the country. However, such factors as low salary, excessive workload, absence of appropriate teaching materials, low levels of English-language proficiency, unsystematic training program and lack of cooperation with government may have negative impact on their motivation and consequently, on successful realization of the reform in the long-run. This research contributes to the academic discussion in the fields of educational policy, language policy, CLIL, teacher agency and multilingualism in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. Although multilingualism is not a new concept in the context of Central Asia, bringing trilingualism into educational sphere of secondary schools on a general basis across the whole country is an important innovation, affecting the cultural change in the region.