Open AccessNation-building and identity development through ethnocultural content in university English for Specific Purposes courses in Kazakhstan
Author(s) -
Dina Kurmanayeva,
Gulzhakhan Tazhitova,
Gulzhan Zhalelova,
Natalya Ustelimova,
Gulmira Kurmanayeva
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
cypriot journal of educational sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.22
H-Index - 5
eISSN - 1305-905X
pISSN - 1305-9076
DOI - 10.18844/cjes.v16i6.6452
Subject(s) - identity (music) , national identity , curriculum , pedagogy , empirical research , reflection (computer programming) , sociology , nation building , mathematics education , psychology , political science , computer science , art , philosophy , epistemology , politics , law , programming language , aesthetics
It seems obvious that that educational activity establishes conditions for the development of a person capable of combining ancestral traditions and values while maintaining their distinctive ethnoculture. This paper investigates how integrating ethnocultural material into English for Specific Purposes (ESP) university courses contributes to nation-building and students’ identity development while at the same time exerting impact on ESP curriculum advancement. The empirical part of the research involved 104 first-year engineering students learning English as a foreign language for specific purposes. The experiment demonstrated that exposing students to regional material and enabling them to communicate in English about their region empowers them in their national and regional identity, while contributing to nation-building goals of university education. The findings of the study reveal that integrating ethnocultural material into ESP university courses positively impacts both students’ motivation and their national identity development.
Keywords: Ethnocultural material, ESP, national identity, nation-building, students, criteria, reflection.