English-medium instruction is a rapidly spreading phenomenon in the contemporary world. Sergeant and Erling (2011) emphasize that “English language education has also begun to be promoted as an important factor in international development programmes” (p. 12). Coleman (2010) unveils that English serves as a key to employability, international mobility, access to information, and development. In this vein, it is not surprising that many developing countries place a great emphasis on English proficiency as an indispensable conduit for boosting human capital and knowledge-based-economy (Johnson, 2009).
Although, depending on the geography of use, teaching content subjects through a L2 can be called as “Content Language Integrated Learning” (CLIL) in Europe, Content-Based-Instruction (CBI) or “immersion” in North America or English-Medium Instruction (EMI) in Southeast Asia. Frequently English becomes the default language of instruction used in those approaches.
As Mehisto, Marsh and Frigols (2008) mention, the dissemination of those approaches outpaces the teacher provision. Whilst some countries furnish the current practitioners with the teacher training on the use of L2 as a medium of instruction, Holland and Romania as an example (Aiello, Martino & Di Sabato, 2015; Sylvén, 2013), many content teachers have to survive on their own. As Eurydice report (2012) claims, majority of the teachers are subject specialists, rather than language area specialists. Thereby, teachers face the double challenge: to foster language development of the students and maintain the acquisition of the content (Sylvén, 2013).
The education system of Kazakhstan is not immune to this emerging trend of using English as a language of instruction. Since 2007 within the trilingual education reform, teaching in English will complement Kazakh and Russian-medium instruction. Functional proficiency in the three languages as the desired outcome of trilingual education is perceived as an imperative of globalization and is a catalyst for Kazakhstan’s competitiveness (Fimiyar, Yakavets & Bridges, 2014. Now a firm move towards teaching in English has led the Ministry of Education and Science to add supplementary qualification to Bachelor of Education degree: the right to teach in English. At present, many universities extend the curricula and allow teacher candidates to choose the specialization, for instance, to major in Mathematics with minor in Computer Science or in teaching Mathematics in English.
Considering this education reform, this study aims at exploring pre-service teacher education for teaching Science and Mathematics in English. While research on in-service teachers for English-medium instruction (EMI) or Content Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is abundant, little is known about pre-service teachers. Furthermore, self-efficacy studies of L2 content teachers are in their infancy. Given this gap, this qualitative interview-based inquiry addresses the following questions:
1) What are the perceptions of Science and Mathematics pre-service teachers regarding how one pedagogical institution prepares them to teach in English? 2) What are the self-efficacy beliefs of Science and Mathematics pre-service teachers in regards to teaching in English? 3) What are their perceived training needs? 4) What changes they would like to propose?
Self-efficacy theory (Bandura, 1977) served as a theoretical framework for understanding the pre-service teachers’ perceptions of university preparation to teach in English. Bandura (1977) defines self-efficacy as "an expectation than one can successfully execute the behavior required to produce the outcomes" (p. 193). Research shows that self-efficacy beliefs are of paramount importance as they affect teaching performance in the future (Hoy & Spero, 2005; Pendergast, Garvis & Keogh, 2011). Self-efficacy framework seems to suit the focus of study as it provides comprehensive explanation of factors affecting the level of confidence to teach in English. Furthermore, as study intends not to evaluate their preparedness, but to address their perceived training needs and reveal their self-efficacy beliefs.