Kazakhstan is a unique multi-ethnic state, whose territory is home to over 130 nationalities. There is a reasonable amount of ethnolinguistic diversity, including more than 70 languages in Kazakhstan. School education is carried out mostly in Kazakh and Russian languages. There are schools teaching in languages of the other peoples living in the Republic. During the last 70 years the Russian language played a central role in virtually all domains of life in Kazakhstan. Today, although Kazakh is constitutionally identified as the state official language, and while strong efforts are being made to promote its use, the Russian language continues to play the role of the common language of international use. To date, Nazarbayev Intellectual schools implement the policy of trilingual education, which is aimed at forming competence of learners in Kazakh, Russian and English languages by teaching subjects in those three languages.

In most of Nazarbayev Intellectual schools (NIS) the teaching starts from Grade 7. As already mentioned, prior to Grade 7 in comprehensive school learners study the subject “History of Kazakhstan” in their native language. In Nazarbayev Intellectual schools from Grade 7 the subject “History of Kazakhstan” is taught in Kazakh (L2), regardless of the language of instruction. This means that the subject content and the subject skills will be developed through the second language (the Kazakh language). Due to the fact that this is the new experience for both teachers and learners, it is necessary to pay attention to the following problematic issue: whether learners are able to acquire the subject content, to acquire subject and supra-subject skills by learning in the second language?

Research objective – to define the influence of the study of the subject “History of Kazakhstan” on the learning of the subject content.

Research questions:

• What factors affect the acquisition of subject knowledge by learners in study of the history of Kazakhstan in the second language?
• How can subject teachers teaching the history of Kazakhstan in the second language make sure that the learners understand everything they need to know in the subject?
• How can teachers help learners learn not only the content of their subjects, but also the language which is necessary for them to demonstrate their understanding of the content? How can learners learn both the subject content and develop their language skills? (Dale, Wibo van der Es, Tanner, 2010).

The goal of teachers is to enable learners to comprehend the subject content in the second language. Teachers should modify their speech by speaking more slowly in the low secondary grades, emphasizing key words or phrases and using cognates, restricted vocabulary, and shorter phrases. Teachers make natural pauses between phrases to give learners time to process the language and also to give learners appropriate “wait time” to interpret questions and formulate responses. This approach provides more opportunities for learners to process the language through the content by means of teaching strategies including scaffolding and feedback (Lyster, 2007).

Creswell, J. W. (2014). Educational research: Planning, conducting and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson. Dale, L. Wibo van der Es, Tanner R (2010). CLIL Skills. Leiden: ICLON, Universiteit Leiden Lyster, R. (2007). Learning and teaching languages through content: A counterbalanced approach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.