Educational and Methodological Activity
The first attempt in creation of a new textbook by the efforts of the chair was “The lessons of Russian language for foreigners” by L.V. Ekshembayeva, Zh. A. Nurshaikhova, E.M. Stepanova, L.S. Torokhtiy. The textbook obtained a grant of the Soros-Kazakhstan Foundation at the tender of educational literature on humanitarian disciplines in 1996 and was issued in the publishing house “Zheti Zhargy”. Construction of this textbook was based on the use of the communicative technology of training going from the intent through semantics to the language form, and not vice versa – from the form to the meaning and use.
Members of the chair annually work over publication of training aids in order to liquidate a deficit in the educational literature not only on the primary course of RAF, but also on the aspect training. These are the most experienced Methodists of the chair A.S. Aitpayeva, A.K. Ahmedova, M.A. Aznabakiyeva, U.K. Valeyeva, Kh.S. Kaskabasova, I.V. Kildyushova, T.V. Kurmanova, I.V. Matsko, Zh. A. Nurshaikhova, E.A. Pak, I.I. Sapronova, L.S. Totokhtiy, and T.A. Shukhovtsova. At the moment members of department published more than 100 textbooks and manuals used at lessons of RAF, KAZAF and aspect disciplines.
From the beginning of 90-ties foreigners started to express interest to the state language. This was a push for development of a new direction in Kazakhstani linguistics – KazAF) and entailed a need to solve a mass of new objectives: substantiation of the methodical concept of teaching of KazAF, creation of curriculum, textbooks, and training manuals addressed to the new category of students.
Kazakh as a foreign language KazAF – is terra incognita – a territory of unknown which requires involvement of namely our chair, since KazNU named after Al-Farabi was and is a flagship of the higher education in Kazakhstan, and foreigners are willing to come here namely in order to study Kazakh and Russian languages.
From 1994 study of Kazakh language from a fragmentary transferred to a serious way. A traditional teaching of Kazakh language did not match in the work with foreigners since it did not assume a drive to the active communication, perception and producing of Kazakh speech, and was aimed at analysis of atomic elements constituting a sentence, and formation of orthographic and punctuation habits. A part of the problems was eliminated in 1997 with issue in the publication house “Balausa” of the training complex “Do you want to speak Kazakh?”, which was created by a team of specialists of Kazakh language under a scientific guidance of L.V. Ekshembayeva. The complex obtained a grant of Soros-Kazakhstan Foundation in the tender of the educational literature on Kazakh language.
In 1999 in the educational plan of the chair there appeared one more discipline related to the state language – Introduction to the Kazakh language for foreigners. To ensure with the training literature of this subject, in 2000 there was issued a training aid of Zh.A. Nurshaikhova, G.A. Mussayeva “Bastau”. In 2009 there was published a textbook of Kazakh (an intensive course for foreigners) by Zh.A. Nurshaikhova and G.A. Musayeva, which won an incentive prize in the competition of Kazakh textbooks, organized by the Ministry of Culture and Committee of information & languages of the RK.
Since 2013, the department has been conducting the Republican festival of pedagogical ideas "Diagnostics of technologies in language teaching." The festival is a platform for discussions on pressing issues of teaching Kazakh and Russian as a foreign language, the main tasks: exchange of best practices, acquaintance with new developments, discussion of modern approaches in the field of language teaching. The result of the Festival is an almanac of scientific and methodological materials "Digest of pedagogical innovations."