Abstract
The present paper describes research to record secondary school teachers’ attitudes towards the initiative to teach certain subjects in English in Kazakhstan two years before the full roll-out of thenationwide reform. All participants were teachers of Biology, Chemistry, Physics or Informatics who were commencing a Professional Development Programme (PDP) to learn beginners’ level Englishand basic subject content in English. The research adopted established conceptual frameworks of teaching subject content through a second language (Content Language Integrated Learning, CLIL)to develop a baseline survey to measure and provide insight as to regional differences in teacherattendees’ attitudes to elements of CLIL. The theoretical framework suggested a list of items thatwere then examined through exploratory factor analysis to indicate how well the theoretical framework applied. As anticipated, three sub-scales to represent three aspects of attitudes towards CLILemerged: external factors such as permitted flexibility and overall coherence in the system (context); learning expectations in the classroom; and, checking of learning and communication in theclassroom. Results showed that there were no significant regional differences in attitudes towards external elements to the initiative but there were regional differences around Kazakhstan in termsof teachers’ expectations of their pupils’ learning as well as attitudes towards checks on learning and communication due to the initiative of using English as a medium of instruction. These resultsof the survey are discussed in relation to the local proficiencies in English education, represented crudely by regional entries and performances by school-leavers in end-of-school tests. An alternativeexplanation for regional differences in the attitudes of those commencing a PDP programme is also presented.Key words: Professional Development Programme, CLIL, teachers’ attitude, English as the medium of instruction.