Meeting of KazNPU students with Leiden University  professors (Netherlands)

On 26 October, 2017 at the Institute of Natural Science and Geography of Abai KazNPU, members of the "Engishclub" organized a meeting of students training in English with professors of the Leiden University (Netherlands) Elise Storck, Daan Romein and head of the professionally-oriented languages department of Abai KazNPU Zh.A. Abuov.

The meeting moderators were Dr. PhD, senior lecturer of the Department of Botany and General Biology A.Sh. Shokanova and PhD doctoral students R. Amanzholov.

Head of the Department Botany and General Biology of Abai, Professor S.Imankulova spoke about the state program for introduction of trilingualism into the education system of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the importance of which is noted our President N.A. Nazarbayev. For the first time in the post-Soviet space, in the Republic of Kazakhstan, at the state level, have been introduced in higher education four disciplines: biology, chemistry, physics and computer science.

The foreign guests, in turn, shared the experience of the Netherlands on the development of multilingualism and shared information about the application of the CLIL methodology in a multilingual educational process, one of the most effective methods for studying subject in English. CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is a new direction of learning, the essence which consists in the fact that in the classroom students study a standard program in the framework of the curriculum in English. It is assumed that with this approach, the language is absorbed more intensively, because the student passes through a larger volume of linguistic material.

To demonstrate the methodology of CLIL, Professor Elise Storck held an excerpt of her usual lesson and gave an express mission, in which all participants were involved.

The students took active part in the discussion and tried to express their thoughts in English.

Guests from the Netherlands also noted the importance of learning a foreign language for the development of both the individual and the country.