<div dir="ltr"><div>Thanks, Bridget, for clearing some of this up!<br><br></div>HS<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 2:14 PM, Bridget Goodman <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bridget.goodman@nu.edu.kz" target="_blank">bridget.goodman@nu.edu.kz</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">In response to Professor Schiffman's queries about Kazakhstan:</span></div><div class="gmail_extra"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_extra"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">I confess that 6 months ago I shared much of your skepticism, and there is still anecdotal evidence that teachers and scholars are concerned as well, or unaware of how to implement such a policy. Research on this issue is still ongoing, some of it being conducted by my thesis advisees who are educators at the center of this issue. </span></div><div class="gmail_extra"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_extra"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">For now, I'd like to say t</span><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">here is currently a trilingual policy or "Trinity of Languages" in education that is part of the Ministry of Education's "State Program for the Development of Education in the Republic of Kazakhstan" 2011-2020". It involves the use of English, Russian, and Kazakh as media of instruction in secondary education for different subjects depending on grade level. </span></div><div class="gmail_extra"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_extra"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">At the moment, the financial and logistical resources for this policy are focused on the experimental network of Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools (</span><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><a href="http://nis.edu.kz/en/" target="_blank">http://nis.edu.kz/en/</a>), which has received significant financial support from the government of Kazakhstan as well as consultation support from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Cambridge, and top scholars in the field such as Fred Geneese. The "Daryn" network of gifted schools and the Kazakh-Turkish Lyceums are also implementing trilingual education; collectively these three networks make up less than 100 schools in a country of 16 million.</span></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">Future plans include the "transfer" of best practices from NIS schools to other schools in Kazakhstan, though it remains to be seen whether these partner schools of NIS will be allocated the same level of financial or material resources (let alone what best practices are ready for transfer). There are numerous pedagogical universities in the country and a general strategic plan for having them offer degrees in "polylingual education", (<a href="http://en.tengrinews.kz/edu/Training-of-polylingual-teachers-will-start-this-year-in-11381/" target="_blank">http://en.tengrinews.kz/edu/Training-of-polylingual-teachers-will-start-this-year-in-11381/</a>) but I have yet to come across anything concrete on their implementation. </span></div><div class="gmail_extra"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_extra"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Education, which is also funded by the Kazakh government and has Penn and Cambridge as strategic partners, is currently involved in offering Master's Degrees in School Leadership, Multilingual Education, and Ph.D. degrees in education as well as a number of Professional Development Programs and research activities in this area (<a href="http://gse.nu.edu.kz" target="_blank">gse.nu.edu.kz</a>).</span></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">For further information, you can read the 2014 edited book </span><i style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">Educational reform and internationalisation: The case of school reform in Kazakhstan</i><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">, edited by David Bridges of Cambridge, which includes a chapter on the trilingual policy. There are also representatives presenting at the Comparative and International Education Society conference in Washington, DC this week, and there is an annual NIS conference in October which attracts presentations on implementation of educational reforms at NIS and beyond. </span><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">To sum up, I agree that much of this is top down and there are practices for which we can and should serve as critical friends, but neither is it as dictatorial or absolute as the sound bite (<a href="http://www.kaztag.kz/en/news/detail.php?ID=349622" target="_blank">http://www.kaztag.kz/en/news/detail.php?ID=349622</a>) suggests.</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">Best,</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">Bridget Goodman, PhD</div><div class="gmail_extra">Assistant Professor of Multilingual Education</div><div class="gmail_extra">Graduate School of Education</div><div class="gmail_extra">Nazarbayev University</div><div class="gmail_extra">Astana, Kazakhstan</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">In the </span></div><div class="gmail_extra"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">1. Where is Kazakhstan going to find a huge group of science/math teachers</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">who are fluent in English?</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">2. If there are none, how will Kazakhstan go about training some? Does it</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">have a teachers' college that can handle this?</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">3. How much will this cost, and how long will it take to produce enough</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">teachers to meet the needs of all the country's schools?</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">4. Is there a schedule for how this will be implemented? How will it be</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">verified that the trainees have attained the proficiency required of them</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">in both STEM subjects and English?</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">5. Has Mr. Nazarbayev looked more closely at the situation in Malaysia</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">that he is trying to replicate? Does he know that things have not gone</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">smoothly there, and that some people are demanding a return to teaching</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">STEM subjects in Malay? Does he know that rural areas with small schools</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">are having a much harder time attracting and keeping competent teachers?</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">6. This whole business looks like the worst kind of language planning, the</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">kind where a strong leader *ordains* a policy, but shows no understanding</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">of what is involved in implementing and carrying out an effective language</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">policy, but expects things to happen just because he wants it to be so.</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">HS</span><br>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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