Difficulties of Implementation of Primary English Education in the Republic of Kazakhstan: Language Teachers’ Views

Abstract

In 2012 the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan has developed State Educational Standards for primary education and curriculum for teaching English to grades 1-4 and the age for English language learning (ELL) has been lowered to 6-7 years of age. This research aims to investigate the extent to which teachers are ready in their teaching in primary schools, how it should be conducted with young learners (YL), and finally what problems of implementation and organization of English Language Teaching (ELT) in primary schools in Kazakhstan language teachers faced with. The data for the study is gathered from 105 English teachers working in different primary schools. The study revealed that along with the positive experience some schools and teachers have had in teaching English languages to young learners (ELYL) from the 1st grade, most of them have not yet made a transition to the system organization of teaching foreign languages in the primary school.