Paper long abstract:

In 2007 Kazakhstan's president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, proposed that a phased implementation of the "Trinity of Languages" project commence. Nazarbayev began this project so that Kazakhstan would be "perceived worldwide as a highly educated country whose population uses three languages. They are: Kazakh, which is the state language, Russian, which is the language of international communication, and English, which is the language of successful integration into the global community" (Almetova et al., 2017, p. 2).

According to the Ministry of Education of Kazakhstan, by 2020 100% of school students will study Kazakh, Russian and English. Additionally, by 2020 all students in 5th grade and higher will take the History of Kazakhstan in Kazakh and English, while World History will be taught in Russian. Moreover, subjects such as physics, chemistry, biology and computer science will be taught in English.

Opinions in Kazakhstan differ regarding the benefits of a trilingual education program. Tussupbekova et al. (2018) emphasize that, thanks to the trilingual education model, students can improve their language skills in reading, writing, listening and speaking. This knowledge, in turn, increases their opportunities for study abroad programs and future employment. However, others raise concerns about this model. They claim it is unlikely that teachers of physics, chemistry, biology and computer science - subjects that will be taught in English - know English well enough to teach their subject in this language. This is true in both rural areas of Kazakhstan, and in cities where there is also a lack of quality teachers.

In my paper I first examine the advantages and disadvantages of the trilingual education program, and then make the argument that too many potential problems (e.g. a lack of teachers capable of teaching through English, a lack of high-quality language learning materials, an insufficient level of knowledge of teachers in rural areas, etc.) may prevent it from succeeding. Moreover, I theorize that because of this trilingual education reform system the development of the state language (i.e. Kazakh) may decrease as students devote more time to both Russian and English.

Although there is much literature that simply describes Kazakhstan's Trinity Language Program, my paper explains why it may fail, thereby filling an existing gap in the literature. Upon the conclusion of the CESS Conference, I intend to publish this paper in "Central Asia Review."

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