Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Kazakhstani Students by Means of DER and Case-Study Method

Abstract

In the context of teaching English as a foreign language in Kazakhstan, there are several problems that students come across: Lack of language environment, lack of motivation and interest, age-related features in groups, language barrier, lack of practice, and interference. This paper reports on an investigation of information and communication technologies (ICT) and specifically focuses on the technology of digital education resources (DER) in classroom language teaching. In 2014, DER was adapted and further developed by Kazakhstani pedagogies for teaching school subjects. The use of ICT and DER are strongly encouraged in recent Kazakhstani and European methodological literature. We take into consideration the possibilities of experiment conduction where DER is used in teaching English speaking in the context of the active case-study method. The advantages of case-study method are considered in European studies as it promotes the process of language interaction and solving case problems both individually and in sub-groups. The students with native Kazakh and Russian languages from secondary schools in Astana took part in these experimental studies. The investigation was multi-methodological, combining classroom teaching experience, cases for students’ oral language practice, focus groups and questionnaires. Analyses revealed the effectiveness of proposed approach of teaching English as foreign language and combining the use of the case-study method and DER.
Keywords: ICT; DER; case study;