New trend of education in Kazakhstan: English as the medium of instruction

Abstract

Joining of Kazakhstan to the Bologna three-cycle system increased significantly the number of programs taught in English language. There are about 40 universities which have special groups, where English is used as the medium of instruction and it makes more than 30% from total educational program. Quantity of the Bachelor, Master and PhD programs are growing dramatically. Some universities see an opportunity to attract a wider range of students or feel that EMI strengthens offer to those students who believe studying in English will make them more employable. EMI can be seen as a threat to the status and development of the local language. On the other hand, EMI can also be treated as an opportunity. This article offers review of issues related with applying EMI in Kazakhstan HEIs.

English in higher education in the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan

“…Several studies in EMI higher education institutions (HEIs) around the world have investigated students' beliefs about content learning (Dearden, 2014;West et al, 2015), language learning (Belhiah & Elhami, 2014;Cho, 2012;Kang & Park, 2005), students' motivation for choosing EMI (Earls, 2016;Yeh, 2014), support (Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012;Ghorbani & Alavi, 2014;Ismail et al, 2011), disapproval of its implementation (Cho, 2012;Hellekjaer, 2017), and lecturers' perceptions of EMI (Airey, 2011;Başıbek et al, 2014;Doiz et al, 2014). The number of research studies on EMI from Central Asia has also been growing; however, the region remains under-researched and is generally limited to reports on the general state of EMI at the country-level (Liddicoat, 2019) or specific universities with EMI (Linn et al, 2020;Seitzhanova et al, 2015;Zenkova & Khamitova, 2018). This article draws from a broader study that explored the experience of English in HEIs across three post-Soviet Central Asian countries -the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.…”

Unraveling EMI as a predictor of English proficiency in Vietnamese higher education: Exploring learners’ backgrounds as a variable

“…EMI students, however, shared the belief that having a high English proficiency would help them secure better job opportunities and enhance their employability, rather than simply seeing language development as the ultimate goal of EMI. This is linked with the emerging research body on graduate employment and EMI (Ekoç, 2020;Huang & Curle, 2021;Seitzhanova et al, 2015;Selvaratnam, 2019;Shmidt, 2018;Villares, 2021). Finally, while content learning was not the original focus of this study, there was evidence to suggest that there is an interaction effect between content learning and language development in EMI.…”

COVID-19 Resulted in Classrooms Without Walls: What can Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (PCK) Offer?

“…The primary objective for the progressive educational reform is underpinned by new liberal market discourse associated with globalization, human capital theory, and the government's aim to be among the 30 most competitive countries in the world (Goodman & Abdimanapova, 2020). Unsurprisingly, to be a global competitor, English Medium Instruction (EMI) has been identi ed as a gateway to academic mobility, participation in international research, and global cooperation, resulting in 42 institutions currently offering EMI degrees (Karabay, 2017;Seitzhanova et al, 2015). However, research illustrates that the switch to EMI gave rise to institutional and student challenges, but there is a research gap about instructors' pedagogical and social justice strategies to address these EMI challenges (Maudarbekova & Kashkinbayeva, 2014;Tastanbek, 2019).…”