Abstract
The study was conducted to investigate problems of implementing multilingual education in Kazakhstani schools. The study considered aspects of multilingual education, such as teachers’ attitudes towards multilingualism and the use of a foreign language as a medium of instruction in secondary school classrooms. These issues were analyzed from the secondary school teachers’ point of view; therefore, the sample consisted of 24 teachers from two trilingual secondary schools in the Almaty region. Semi-structured interviews were conducted as instruments of qualitative data collection. The thematic analysis showed that teachers had a positive attitude toward multilingualism in secondary school classrooms, as long as they placed high importance on first language development. However, it turns out that in practice, teachers use mostly students’ first language rather than second and foreign languages as a medium of instruction. The lack of knowledge and experience of moving from monolingual to multilingual practice was stated as a reason for such a situation. The conclusions suggest that pre- and in-service teachers should get special preparation or mentorship to tackle the mentioned problems.