Ideal Multilingual Self, Language Learning Motivation and Strategy Uses of students in Kazakhstan

Faculty-development competitive research grants program for 2020-2022 (batch 2)

Underpinned by a sociocultural standpoint on language learning, the present project aims to capture not only the difficulties that students face while studying through EMI, but also their underlying English language learning motivations and associated strategy uses. Participants’ future visions related to their multilingual identity construction and development will be examined as well. In this sense, the mediating role of various different contextual conditions (e.g. private supplementary tutoring/shadow education, teachers’ teaching practices and nationality, parents’ level of involvement, assessment mode, peers’ mediation and the availability of technological tools) will be particularly explored in this project. The study will adopt a mixed-methods approach, using two questionnaires (a quantitative method) and semi-structured individual interviews (qualitative methods). This triangulation of research methods would give the study findings validity, together with empowering the students to exercise their agency by articulating and sharing their own experiences and feelings towards the phenomenon under study.