See you at the university!

See you at the university!

The Department of Language and General Education Training of Foreigners of the Faculty of Pre - University Education of the Al - Farabi Kazakh National University has been the flagship of working with foreign students in Kazakhstan for more than 35 years, preparing students from different countries for admission to universities of our country, teaching everyone Kazakh and Russian as foreign languages. The teaching staff of the department is highly qualified specialists in the field of teaching Kazakh and Russian as foreign languages. It should be noted that it was at this department that the term “Kazakh as foreign language” was first used.
Traditionally, the department has successfully trained 200 - 250 students from China, South Korea, Turkey, Afghanistan, Europe, the United States and others every academic year.
However, the coronavirus pandemic that broke out in 2020, as is known, made negative adjustments to the activities of the educational system as a whole. The transition to the distance format significantly reduced the effectiveness of teachers ' work, as the result began to depend on subjective factors. We can talk a lot about the disadvantages of the online format of language teaching – this, we believe, is a separate topic for research. Among the main negative factors, we note those related to the technical support of the educational process not only in our country, but also in the countries where the students of the department live.
Currently, the decision of the leadership of our country to start the academic year 2021 - 2022 in the traditional, as it is now customary to say offline, format inspires cautious optimism. At the same time, a number of mandatory requirements are set, which the leadership of the Kazakh National University is trying to implement with all care. Measures have been taken and continue to be taken to create a safe sanitary and epidemiological environment on the university campus. It is in order to start the academic year flawlessly that its start has been postponed to September 13.
All this suggests that the Department of Language and General education training of foreigners of the Al - Farabi Kazakh National University is again ready to accept students from around the world for training in the traditional format who want to master the Kazakh or Russian languages. All those in need will be given the opportunity to settle in a student hostel.
On the eve of the new academic year, teachers of the Department of Language and General Education Training of Foreigners of the Faculty of Pre - university Education held an online meeting with students planning to study at the department. During the event, teachers in 4 languages: Kazakh, Russian, Chinese, English told about everything that concerns the peculiarities of the organization of the educational process in the conditions of an ongoing pandemic.
The specifics of the event was that some of the foreign students were outside our country at the time of the meeting. Therefore, the teachers explained the details related to the arrival of students at the place of study, as well as the main requirements of the university.
The audience took note of the information with great attention. The format of the dialogue allowed students to ask questions, both in written and oral form, to get comprehensive answers to them.
At the end of the meeting, the teachers stressed that they will be in constant contact with students before the start of classes and will be able to orient them in order to successfully start the learning process.
In conclusion, I would like to invite foreign citizens to study at the Department of Language and General Education Training of foreigners of the Al - Farabi Kazakh National University.

Senior lecturer of the Department of Language and
General Education Training of Foreigners
Akhmedova A. K.