[lg policy] Re: lgpolicy-list Digest, Vol 71, Issue 15

Wed Mar 11 20:02:37 UTC 2015

Thanks, Bridget, for clearing some of this up!

HS

On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 2:14 PM, Bridget Goodman <bridget.goodman at nu.edu.kz>
wrote:

> In response to Professor Schiffman's queries about Kazakhstan:
>
> 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.
>
> For now, I'd like to say there 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.
>
> At the moment, the financial and logistical resources for this policy are
> focused on the experimental network of Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools (
> http://nis.edu.kz/en/), 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.
>
> 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", (
> http://en.tengrinews.kz/edu/Training-of-polylingual-teachers-will-start-this-year-in-11381/) but
> I have yet to come across anything concrete on their implementation.
>
> 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 (
> gse.nu.edu.kz).
>
> For further information, you can read the 2014 edited book *Educational
> reform and internationalisation: The case of school reform in Kazakhstan*,
> 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.
>
> 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 (
> http://www.kaztag.kz/en/news/detail.php?ID=349622) suggests.
>
> Best,
>
> Bridget Goodman, PhD
> Assistant Professor of Multilingual Education
> Graduate School of Education
> Nazarbayev University
> Astana, Kazakhstan
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In the
> 1.  Where is Kazakhstan going to find a huge group of science/math teachers
> who are fluent in English?
>
> 2. If there are none, how will Kazakhstan go about training some?  Does it
> have a teachers' college that can handle this?
>
> 3.  How much will this cost, and how long will it take to produce enough
> teachers to meet the needs of all the country's schools?
>
> 4.  Is there a schedule for how this will be implemented?  How will it be
> verified that the trainees have attained the proficiency required of them
> in both STEM subjects and English?
>
> 5.  Has Mr. Nazarbayev looked more closely at the situation in Malaysia
> that he is trying to replicate?  Does he know that things have not gone
> smoothly there, and that some people are demanding a return to teaching
> STEM subjects in Malay?  Does he know that rural areas with small schools
> are having a much harder time attracting and keeping competent teachers?
>
> 6.  This whole business looks like the worst kind of language planning, the
> kind where a strong leader *ordains* a policy, but shows no understanding
> of what is involved in implementing and carrying out an effective language
> policy, but expects things to happen just because he wants it to be so.
>
> HS
>
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-- 
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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