Recent years have seen Kazakhstan improve its English enormously, with native-sounding speakers in the main cities increasingly commonplace. Plainly, this isn’t something that happened overnight, nor is it something that represents job done for a country with impressive plans to play a central role in a yet-emerging world.
The intention of becoming a trilingual nation is admirable, and while realistic as well, requires more than good teachers delivering energetic lessons.
The input of teachers is essential, and it’s no mystery that pupils in schools will need the help of competent professionals to reach high levels in a language that the vast majority of them will depend on to further their career ambitions.
This article is not primarily about schools or teachers. What can also matter is the extent to which English features outside the classroom. There is no suggestion here that schools need to rethink how they structure their timetables, or that teachers need to upgrade their skills, but that the language needs to transcend the boundaries of ‘school subject’ in order to become more of an embedded part of the culture. This is not simply a matter for teachers and education chiefs to consider, nor is it a one-size-fits-all scenario with a simple solution.
Here are some ideas, anyway…
Some children in school identify English as ‘another subject’, and those who enjoy the lessons are more likely to get better results, yet even for those who excel, English may then stop when the lesson ends and not feature again until they sit down to do their homework.
The result of this is that the acquisition of English becomes about learning facts and completing tasks rather than actually becoming part of a young person’s life, certainly a big part of the job and the foundation for anything else being of any assistance, too. Where a language learner is able to become part of an English-speaking world, their knowledge of words and grammar takes on more relevance, and their ability grows, along with their confidence.
Getting 10 on a summative assessment is satisfying and empowering, but not even that means that the child then uses English outside the classroom beyond seeing a few quick videos on social media. Doubtless, the globalised free-for-all that is Instagram can help inspire people to learn and use English; such is the power of pixels these days, but it still only happens in a very self-contained world, and falls short of the levels of fuller immersion that truly bring about language proficiency.
The experience of some of the leading English-speaking (non-native) countries in the world backs this idea up because in the Dutch or Scandinavian reality, teachers may indeed be very good, their lessons likewise, but this is not the whole picture. Children are exposed to English from their pre-school days, not because it is the lingua franca of the kindergarten, but because a lot of children’s TV in those countries is in English. According to Forbes:
Turn on a Norwegian TV channel and the chances are, you’ll be hearing an English-language show with Norwegian subtitles. Unlike in many other countries, English shows are almost never dubbed.
In contrast to Spain (whose English is also respectable), the Nordic countries screen cartoons with the original audio and subtitle them, while other countries dub them. This is not the only way to go, because Germany also dubs its children’s TV programmes and has the highest average IELTS score in the world, hinting at excellent schooling and confidence across the board.
In the absence of good teaching, no amount of cartoons can get the job done, yet many of the fully proficient English speakers I have chanced to ask have said that they grew up watching cartoons in English. Even if they don’t directly learn words from it, it creates a space in the brain for the new language and means that children don’t feel ‘intimidated’ when they first meet it in a more formal setting. It is already a part of their lives. And more critically, they learn to ‘think in English’, which not even the best teachers can train them to do.
This doesn’t necessarily need to involve extensive contact. In the village where I live, a young family has two children, and I speak to them in English. One day, the grandmother came to me and thanked me because her granddaughter was top of the class, and her teacher had said she had a special talent. Yet I never taught that girl a single word; I just said hello and how are you? whenever I saw them. This has no quantifiable impact, but it meant that Zhaniya, as she is called, started those English lessons feeling that it was for her, already knowing that it was part of her life, however insignificant it seemed to me (and perhaps does to you).
Confidence from familiarity, not only applicable to English but to most other subjects.
Another factor may be more controversial and should not override the teacher’s right to choose how they do their jobs, but a lot of English lessons in many countries are delivered in the local language. This not only reduces active, real practice time but also has the effect of consolidating the belief that learning English is just acquiring information.
Learning a language to pass exams can work on so many levels; it can help get the job done, and there is little better motivation to add to the vocabulary than an impending IELTS test on which your dreams depend. This, however, is often ten years after the whole process began, and so much can be achieved before it is time for last-gasp cramming.
Families with English-speaking parents have an advantage, as many of them can use the language with their children. Some have reported that this is uncomfortable, quite understandably, but it doesn’t need to be something they do all the time. Frequent short routines can be inspiring, and even if some of the words then get lost, as with Zhaniya above, it means that English becomes something natural to them.
English Teacher Val on YouTube has some useful tips that parents can adapt even without high levels of the language themselves. His ideas include parents narrating activities, labelling the house, reading together, and singing together, all in short, manageable timeframes that inspire more than they teach.
The next point is for those who have already gained some knowledge, but by far the best tip of all for any language learned at any age, and that is READ.
Not many people can read original classics in a foreign language, which is nothing to be ashamed of. Graded readers are available, and if you forgive me for linking to mine here, it will partly be because I qualify it by saying that there are hundreds of other books that have been designed for people of certain abilities, most of which would help achieve this ‘full-immersion’ approach to learning. Some would be dull, of course, and no, you are not going to gain much pushing on through a story you find tedious. Don’t give up; put it down and try another one.
Coming back to cartoons for a moment, these work better when experienced in small doses, as constantly being bombarded with a foreign language can get tiring not only for children, but for anybody. Yet making this part of their lives has already been proven to work by the Swedes, who are said to have the best non-native English in the world. I would go with the Danes, myself, but what of it? They all grow up hearing English in the home instead of just from a teacher later on.
Bilingual families have the greatest advantage of all. Often, their experience is that the children don’t learn both languages equally and tend to feel more comfortable expressing themselves in one over the other (often the mother’s). The British Council understands this reality, basically that even if a language doesn’t always come out, it very often goes in:
Understanding is always greater than speaking, and young children’s ability to comprehend should not be underestimated.
As a result, when they reach 5 or 6, the language that was ‘hiding’ then becomes one they communicate in just as well as their preferred one.
Non-native parents who know English to any level can still achieve this to some degree by incorporating regular English time into family life, an investment that will, in most cases, pay dividends in later childhood, partly because, to a degree, these children are already used to ‘thinking in English’. However little they do it, it helps.
Global IELTS statistics show that Kazakhstan has improved over the last decade and is now ahead of some countries widely seen as proficient in English, Egypt, for example. While catching up with a host of European countries whose mother tongues have far more in common with English than Kazakh and Russian is not something we can achieve overnight, learning from the experience of some of these countries can be a useful part of the process.
It still seems to be the case that many people here see English as ‘something you study’. Evidently, this is a fact, yet also a limiting belief because it means that in many cases the only contact people have with it is when they are in the lesson or doing assignments. There is nothing wrong with that in itself. But more could be achieved if people made the language more a part of everyday life, right from childhood.
