New Exam to Encourage Kazak Fluency
Monday, 19 February, 2007
New Exam to Encourage Kazak Fluency
Monday, 19 February, 2007
Education Minister Janseit Tuimebaev announced at a government meeting on February 13 that Kazak language will be a compulsory single National Test, SNT, subject for secondary school graduates from 2008 to improve the quality of language teaching and expand the use of Kazak.
The new exam is based on the American Test of English as a Foreign Language, TOEFL, used to test English proficiency in non native speakers, and the Kazak curriculum will include teaching methods geared towards helping pupils prepare for the test.
Less than two-thirds of Kazakstan’s 15 million people can speak the official national language.
Linguist and university lecturer Zinaida Savina “[trusts] foreign systems of teaching languages, including the American system which enables people to learn a language in half a year”.
She suggests that the most positive aspect of the new curriculum is that it defines what constitutes language fluency and will help pupils to achieve that recognised standard.
But Aigul Anarbekova, a teacher of Kazak language, does not believe that teachers have the necessary skills to teach the curriculum.
“At the moment, there are neither proper teaching methods nor real professionals for this. It is no secret that people, who [simply don’t have adequate teaching skills] work in some schools, especially in rural areas,” said Anarbekova.
Even if teachers receive the appropriate training, this education drive is unlikely to have a significant impact on Kazak fluency because the subject is not compulsory in primary school, according to NBCentralAsia media-watcher Daur Dosybiev.
“The introduction of TOEFL will not bring results. Intensive [language] education en masse should be started from [early] childhood."
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
