There has been a vast body of research undertaken into multilingual programmes. These programmes seek to improve language skills in learners’ second (L2) and/or third (L3) languages by teaching them as separate subjects as well as using them as medium of instruction for delivering other content subjects. In North America and some European countries these programmes are referred to as immersion, while elsewhere in Europe they are often termed as CLIL. International research into these programmes has found that students in bilingual programme when comparing with students in monolingual programmes achieve the same (Genesee, 2004) and sometimes higher (Gajo and Sera, 2002) levels of competence in subject content; and superior levels of proficiency in L2 (Lyster, 2007; Housen, 2002).

Most of research on multilingual education is focused on student outcomes and test data, rather than students’ experiences (Lefebvre, 2012). There have been a very few qualitative studies of students’ attitudes toward and their perceptions of multilingual education. Mark Payne, one of the first few researchers who studied students’ perceptions of multilingual education, using a child-centered approach, explored “how school pupils in English secondary schools could contribute to the shaping of the foreign language (FL) curriculum in their institutions through the choices they make and their underlying rationales” (Payne, 2006, p. 189). His research highlights the importance of students’ voice in policy making. Hayashi (2005) researched how students’ attitudes toward bilingualism affect their language proficiency and found that they do influence the acquisition process, although it is not reported what those attitudes are. Gerena (2010) concluded that wider social context influences students’ perceptions of value and importance of languages, which led her to recommend school leaders and teachers to address the perceived values of each of the languages in the programme. Tse (2000) argued that we need to know students’ attributions to success or failure because these have important implications for programme development and teacher pedagogy. Lefebvre (2012) concluded from her findings that creating a safe learning environment is very important to avoid students’ fear of failure and peer shaming.

Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools (NIS), created in 2008 by Kazakhstan government as an experimental platform for introducing the latest innovations in education with the intention to transfer the best experience and practice to the national educational system, piloted a new trilingual curriculum in September 2012. Developed in collaboration with Cambridge International Examinations and NIS teachers, this curriculum intended to combine best national and international experience as well as reflect the country’s vision in promoting trilingualism: Kazakh as a state language, Russian as an additional communication language among the nations and English as a language of successful integration into the international community.

The purpose of this research is to explore NIS students’ perceptions of trilingual education and impact on their learning of both content subjects and languages (L2 and L3). It is important to conduct this research for two main reasons: firstly, as it was argued earlier, students’ perceptions have implications for their motivation and performance; secondly, the research should inform further improvements in NIS trilingual education policy and practice.

The research will attempt to answer the following questions:

• What are students’ attitudes toward the trilingual education policy? What do they think about studying in Kazakh, Russian and English?
• How do students perceive instruction in L2 or L3 and its implications for their level of competence in subject content?
• How do students perceive instruction in L2 or L3 and its implications for their level of competence in these languages?

 The sub-questions are the following: What factors cause these perceptions and attitudes? Do these perceptions affect students’ learning?

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