The research legacy of MA 1 in the spring semester

 

This post is dedicated to all students of MA in Multilingual education program who have studied hard this semester to share their knowledge, express their thoughts and advance their language skills through the blog writing. Their blogs merit special attention.

Why are they so important?

They are scholarly but personal.

                                     They concern education and life.

                                                  They demonstrate our accomplishments and future plans.

While reading each post I could see the variety of interests and perspectives of each author. Easy calculations:  thanks to 27 students we have got 189 masterpieces about anything in the world (but mostly about education, of course). They write with passion and joy; address sensitive, controversial and ambiguous topics; add their voice and style to each work. With this post I would like to give credits to all the authors of this semester who opened my eyes to a variety of existing problems and possible solutions; who shared their stories, analyzed speeches and discourses; who searched for engaging pictures and videos; who invented ingenious titles and experimented with design; who did their best to add to the scope of knowledge of other people. Welcome to the temple of knowledge built by amazing students of MA in Multilingual education!

The diversity of topics covered is just incredible. It is impossible to mention all of the blogs in one writing but I would like to synthesize some of them to show how much we can change in the educational system in terms of curriculum, classroom environment, and teaching approach if we just start working together and transmit knowledge and experience to others.

A lot of discussions were raised about the learning environment and creating comfortable conditions for students. As sashaxxxx mentioned, emotional intelligence plays a crucial role in students’ learning that is why the issues of appropriate class size (uaxi), studying hours (bayanassylbek), and discipline maintenance (chsherbakov) should be considered. The need of school uniform (farihandro) is not always justified when it comes to sustaining the emotional well-being of students but including animals (alinatatiyeva) into the learning process is definitely an effective way to relieve stress and anxiety. It was all about the form but looking at the content of education MA students also suggested some ideas how to improve it.

The curriculum should be renewed to include the development of skills for learners’ future life and keep them mentally strong. Aigulizat and gulzhaina13 emphasized on the positive influence of arts and music on the children’s well-being and argued for the increase of the time devoted to these disciplines in school. Also, as Kazakhstan is multilingual and multicultural country, we can benefit from it using the method of tandem learning (ariyavvv) as well as showing the importance of intercultural competence (danasan13) in the modern world. This could be done by organizing special Multilingual clubs (assema001) which allow to explore other cultures not only in theory but in real communication. Arai4ona and khakimkenzhetayev addressed the reading habits of learners and gave their recommendations both on how to read effectively and use this skill in the classroom to learn through the story-telling. Even such topic as the total spread of fast food was not left without attention. Makha09 shared Japan’s experience of including food education in the school curriculum and its positive outcomes.  Some of these initiatives could be really helpful for children’s development and additional research would induce the Ministry of Education and Science to consider them.

However, it is not only the work of the Ministry to raise healthy and intelligent children. As educators (and parents) we should not restrict our children too much (asselt) because of our fears for their physical and mental health but should teach them that mistakes and failures (asselshmidt) are opportunities for further improvement. We should help them to become responsible, independent individuals who are able to plan their time, cope with deadlines (ayanairis), and choose what disciplines (maira1291) they want to study more. Also, it is necessary to develop a variety of soft skills (aidana17) for their future life such as “social skills, communication, higher-order thinking, self-control and self-concept”. Supporting children we support our future but the teachers’ problems should not be neglected in the process of change.

Many works were devoted to teaching practice and teachers training. Gulnarbakytzhanova created some steps that will help them to learn three languages as part of their preparation to the implementation of trilingual reform. The question of educators’ professionalism (lenerakezlevli), and its connection to teacher-student relationship (akalya77) especially with introverted children (sharapat812) became an important part of students’ discussions. In addition to that, yasawi859 and soothsayer presented innovative approaches of teaching with the use of modern technology such as IPADs and video essays.

In conclusion, I agree with aigerimkazhigalieva who writes about blogs as an effective way to improve language skills and express one’s thoughts. Personally, I enjoyed writing them very much. But I enjoyed reading my groupmates’ works even more. So I want to thank you all for the tremendous work you have done and ask you one question: if we consider all these points raised above, will our educational system become the best example of success in education?

P.S. My answer is that maybe it is too much, I do not know. What I know is that if young researchers choose to put their efforts into the search of the solutions for the better world, they will definitely find them.