A Study Of Bilingual Education At Primary And Middle Schools In Bishkek Of Kyrgyzstan

As one part of five Asian countries, Kyrgyzstan inherited the unbalanced bilingualism system of the former Soviet Union. After 20 years of impendence, the government kept trying to change the language policy to make it balance, but the effect is not that obvious. Language problem is still the most contradict issue in this country.To realize the current situation of the elementary and secondary school of Kyrgyzstan, this research is done in the capital, Bishkek. This research chose 228 students, 40 teachers and 53 parents of 7 Kyrgyz-Russian local elementary and secondary schools. This research collected data and information through literature review, visit schools, class observation, and teacher-students interview.It systematically dealed with the current situation of the using of bilingualism of students, teachers and the parents, and their attitude to it. It analyzed the current situation and features in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and the develop advantages and the limiting factors of elementary and secondary schools in this area.It shows that, comparing with the former Soviet Union, the dependenced Kyrgyzstan bilingual education policy is obviously different. The national rejuvenation of Kyrgyzstan is stronger these years, the government paid a lot of attention to the effect of mother tongue and kept formulating policies. Bishkek, as a most Russian city,shows a strengthen trend in Kyrgyz education.The school amounts,teaching staff,textbook compilation and the curriculum were improved because of the government’s value of the mother language. Russian education is kind of weaken because of the mainly ethnic appeal the authorities to protect their mother tongue and the antipathy toward Russian. But Russian is still common used in daily life even these factors.On the issue of choose which kind of language education,teachers and parents consider more about the students’ obtain of scientific knowledge and the future career,many of them show the positive attitude to the Kyrgyz-Russian bilingual education in elementary and secondary schools.Although,the Kyrgyzstan’s government and the educational apartment amended the constitution and promulgated language policy many times to keep the balance of bilingualism,there are still many problems in elementary and secondary schools because of the influence of the former Soviet Union’s bilingual system,regional economic and the self limiting factors of Kyrgyz. The elementary and secondary schools’ infrastructure construction, the quality of bilingual education and the balanced bilingual development in different areas become the burning issues.