5. The Re-Acquisition of Kazakh in Kazakhstan: Achievements and Challenges

Smagulova, Juldyz

doi:10.1515/9781614514534-009

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…One of the main findings from the study is that Russian continues to play an important place in the portfolio of languages used by urban school students from mixed-language schools in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. This finding is consistent with prior studies on the topic conducted by Fierman (2006) and Smagulova (2008Smagulova ( , 2016. Outside the class-room settings and beyond communication with immediate family members, even students receiving education in Kazakh tend to use Russian as an alternate or the main language of communication.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…In a more recent study, Smagulova (2016) presented the results of a survey, which contained a section exploring language use among speakers of different ages including school children. Similarly to the earlier study, this study revealed that Russian continued to dominate as the most frequently used language in many spheres of everyday communication in Kazakhstan.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As it is clear from the overview of the existing literature, little is known about the present-day patterns of language use among Kazakhstani school children. While several studies were conducted on the topic in the past, they either explored the situation more than a decade ago (Fierman, 2006) or looked at the patterns of language use for various age groups with only limited attention devoted to the school-age population (Smagulova, 2016). Meanwhile, as the government is transitioning to educational trilingualism and is promoting not only a more extensive use of Kazakh, but also of English at schools, an exploration of school-age children's language use tendencies is more than overdue in Kazakhstan.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Language Use among Secondary School Students in Kazakhstan

Kuzhabekova

2019

ALR Journal

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This study analyzes the results of a survey conducted among 76 urban high school students of both genders at a school in Astana, Kazakhstan, to compare patterns of language use among children from classes with Russian and Kazakh language of instruction. The study revealed that Russian continues to dominate most of the spheres of language use and is utilized as the main language of communication by over 50% of students enrolled in Russian classes, as well as the alternate language of communication with peers by around 70% of the Kazakh-speaking youth attending Kazakh classes. The study also revealed that immediate family, including parents and grandparents in particular, play an important role in preserving the use of Kazakh as the main language of communication. Seventy seven percent of students in Kazakh classes use exclusively Kazakh in communication with grandparents. Meanwhile, in bilingual and Russian-speaking families parents no longer push the use of Kazakh by children with only 19% of children using exclusively Kazakh with grandparents. Importantly, the study revealed that children in both groups increasingly rely on the use of Russian and English in communication across various modern media, such as TV and the Internet. The study concludes that the continuing dominance of Russian may create challenges for maintenance of Kazakh during introduction of trilingual education policy and recommends that greater attention should be paid by policy makers to development of Internet content in Kazakh, while ethnic Kazakh parents should maintain a stricter monolingula policy at home to preserve Kazakh.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Language Use among Secondary School Students in Kazakhstan

Kuzhabekova

2019

ALR Journal

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“…Examining the sociolinguistic environment is particularly important in higher education in post‐Soviet contexts such as Kazakhstan given that both English and Kazakh are relatively recent additions to a domain that historically has been dominated by the Russian language (Smagulova, 2016). One study with students at a Kazakhstani university identified limited English presence and subsequently limited opportunities for language development in a reportedly multilingual program (Belova, 2017).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Institutional Supports for Language Development through English‐Medium Instruction: A Factor Analysis

et al. 2021

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The purpose of this paper is to build and test a framework of four factors stakeholders in postgraduate higher education institutions in Kazakhstan perceive as supporting or hindering language development in English‐medium programs. Data in this mixed‐methods study were collected through student surveys and interviews with students, faculty and administration from six universities across Kazakhstan. Factor analysis confirmed the value of structural, pedagogical, sociolinguistic, and cultural factors for language development. Quantitative and qualitative data demonstrated that respondents highly valued structural factors such as academic mobility abroad and having an opportunity to interact with international faculty. However, they were less satisfied with national and university policies on the implementation of EMI. Additional structural factors including: a significant lack of pedagogical trainings, lack of collaboration with EFL instructors for curriculum development, and low overall English language proficiency of faculty and students, led to pedagogical challenges in classrooms. These challenges were somewhat mitigated by translanguaging practices. The sociolinguistic factors scale demonstrated that out of three languages, Russian was the most prevalent on campuses, which, according to qualitative data, creates pressure to maintain English. Finally, the cultural factors data revealed that students were highly motivated for their ideal self, whereas institutions strived to be research‐oriented and included in the international ranking lists. Based on these findings, it is recommended that curricula be adjusted to include spaces for multilingual practices, and that faculty be provided support in teaching in English through professional development courses.

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“…From a broad perspective, the language policies of Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic are situated in a socio‐economic context in which both countries are also experiencing broader demographic shifts due to myriad factors. Factors include: outbound migration of Russians and other non‐titular nationalities, declining marriage rates, drastic drop‐offs in birth rates, and urbanisation, along with facing the monumental task of building new socio‐political‐economic systems for the nascent nation‐states (Koenig, 2000; Kuznetsova, 2001; Smagulova, 2016a; Wright, 2000). Although both countries’ educational policies and institutions still exhibit vestiges of a Soviet legacy, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have followed different structural socio‐economic reform paths since the 1990s.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

English language choices in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Ahn

Smagulova

2021

World Englishes

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This article examines English language choice amidst dynamic social and linguistic change contexts in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Kazakhstan has formally committed to an official trilingual language policy – Kazakh, Russian, and English. In comparison, Kyrgyzstan has a dual language policy – Kyrgyz and Russian. However, its Ministry of Education and Science has demonstrated an informal commitment to developing English competency in‐country through various English language teaching/learning initiatives. Using data collected between 2014 and 2017 in both countries, this article explores how English language teaching/learning is positioned differently in these two Central Asian Republics, while also aiming to understand how participants’ language choices were informed both by the particularities of their contexts and the intersectional nature of language choice.

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5. The Re-Acquisition of Kazakh in Kazakhstan: Achievements and Challenges

Cited by 11 publications

References 0 publications

Language Use among Secondary School Students in Kazakhstan

Language Use among Secondary School Students in Kazakhstan

Institutional Supports for Language Development through English‐Medium Instruction: A Factor Analysis

English language choices in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

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