Interview with Shokhrat - Former Citizen of Turkmenistan
The following is the transcript from my phone interview with Shokhrat on the teaching and learning of English as well as Turkmen usage and attitudes toward English. Shokhrat has chosen not to provide his last name. The responses of the interviewee have not been edited in any way.
Q: Did you grow up in Turkmenistan?
A: Yeah, I was born there. I grew up there. I still have many relatives and friends who live there.
Q: Are you Turkmen? Do you speak Turkmen?
A: Yes, I am Turkmen, and my first language is Turkmen.
Q: Aside English, did you learn any other languages?
A: Yeah, as I grew up I went to school where we learned Russian as a second language. Actually out of kinder school, through high school there were classes to learn Russian with our mother language, Turkmen.
Q: What was the effect of changing script from Cyrillic to Latin in 1991?
A: Yeah, they changed from the Russian script, I think its called Cyrillic, to the Latin script to make it more Turkish since the Turkish script has the Latin script. That’s one of the reasons they went back to Latin.
Q: How did you learn English? What was your experience like?
A: I learned English, when I went to school was during the soviet times. The year the soviet union collapsed, I graduated from High school. During that time English was not that popular. They taught us a few classes, maybe one year or two year of English. But it was very limited. We never saw the use of it, and they never told us how we could use it, because the country was closed, and there was never opportunity to travel outside of the country. And within the country there were few English speakers. So we just learned some basics, some grammar of the English language and the alphabet and a few words. That was my first exposure to English language.
Then in 1994 I entered the university and actually studied international law to become an international lawyer. But in that sense, English was very important and my diploma was actually “international lawyer specializing in English language” because as a diplomat or a future diplomat, you have to focus on the language, and my class was focused on English. And that’s why four years I studied English at the university, and it was kind of an intensive way of learning.
But one thing, while we were going to university and studying English, we didn’t have a lot of people around us who spoke English, and that’s why the practical side of us wasn’t available. For me it was a different case because I was connected to some English speakers in business communities and missionary communities and teachers from the west, and so I was able to practice to some extent. But for a lot of my classmates, they never got to have a conversation with English speaker while they studied English, and that’s why by the time they graduated, the majority of them couldn’t even talk.
Later I learned some other languages alongside English. I ended up learning Norwegian. We had to leave our country because of persecution. Actually I was a pastor and the government is kind of Muslim there, and they didn’t like it and they persecuted my family and that’s why we ended up fleeing, ended up refugees living in a Persian Russia and then we ended up being UN refugees in Norway and lived three years in Norway, and I went to Norwegian language school for the first five months and I learned Norwegian.
Q: How do you feel about the dissonance between the Government appearance of modern and embracing of international relationship as opposed to the actual authoritarian practices of the government and fear of non-Turkmen influence in English education?
A: . But yeah, regarding the language they try, I think after the Soviet Union collapsed the government tried to promote English as one of the second languages, Russia and English, and they encouraged students to learn. At the same time they are afraid of communities being influenced by their culture creed and which English language in a sense represents. And that is why there is some tension in that regard. For example they will have YouTube channels or certain media platforms banned in the country so young people cannot access that. In one sense they want their people to learn English and community and grow their business community and different things. But at the same time if I were to go and try to open an English school, a private school, there are a lot of restrictions. They are very suspicious for example of someone starting up language school or English even kindergarten where you teach young kids or after school English clubs. They look very suspicious to that, and definitely they will investigate and KGB will be involved. It’s very restrictive. They’re afraid of losing power or losing influence.
Q: In terms of the general population, would you say they hold that same suspicion toward English?
A: People are in love with English. Yeah with parents its very interested to help their kids to learn or have opportunities to learn English. If there are opportunities, then I think most of the people would have been really giving their kids or learning themselves English language. They are very open to learn English because they recognize that English is an international language for communication or travelling or business or even having opportunity to go to other countries and study, study abroad. People, general population really love and want to have that opportunity, but there are not so many opportunities available to them. And government on one hand will kind of encourage them but I think schools don’t have nice good teachers because teachers never exposed to real, native English speakers themselves. They can’t even talk. For example, I remember my teacher back in my village, he was many, many years English language teacher, but when we asked him to translate for our friend who came and who wanted to communicate, he couldn’t fully converse or translate easily even though he knew that grammar and a lot of words. He never had practice. People want it and are excited and want to learn. Young people are very open. And some of the programs they have, some centers where they learn but not so many.
Q: Has English influenced the popular culture in anyway or has the government kept tight regulation on western influence?
A: Signs are still pretty much Turkmen, maybe some are English in the capital city, and for some Olympic event they had English signs. Overall, its not incorporated. And because we don’t have a lot of tourists coming through English is not used. Even though we build all of these hotels, the country is still mostly closed, and for what? The government just builds the hotels for themselves and their own ego. It’s not paying off. This investment isn’t paying off because of the restricted visa and regulations. If a foreigner comes, he will be monitored.
But the younger generation, since they watch TV and YouTube and other things, and more educated young people lean towards English. But another shift is that the population watched more Turkish shows, and influence of Turkish culture is in the older generation is big, but younger people are leaning more toward the west.
Q: Did you grow up in Turkmenistan?
A: Yeah, I was born there. I grew up there. I still have many relatives and friends who live there.
Q: Are you Turkmen? Do you speak Turkmen?
A: Yes, I am Turkmen, and my first language is Turkmen.
Q: Aside English, did you learn any other languages?
A: Yeah, as I grew up I went to school where we learned Russian as a second language. Actually out of kinder school, through high school there were classes to learn Russian with our mother language, Turkmen.
Q: What was the effect of changing script from Cyrillic to Latin in 1991?
A: Yeah, they changed from the Russian script, I think its called Cyrillic, to the Latin script to make it more Turkish since the Turkish script has the Latin script. That’s one of the reasons they went back to Latin.
Q: How did you learn English? What was your experience like?
A: I learned English, when I went to school was during the soviet times. The year the soviet union collapsed, I graduated from High school. During that time English was not that popular. They taught us a few classes, maybe one year or two year of English. But it was very limited. We never saw the use of it, and they never told us how we could use it, because the country was closed, and there was never opportunity to travel outside of the country. And within the country there were few English speakers. So we just learned some basics, some grammar of the English language and the alphabet and a few words. That was my first exposure to English language.
Then in 1994 I entered the university and actually studied international law to become an international lawyer. But in that sense, English was very important and my diploma was actually “international lawyer specializing in English language” because as a diplomat or a future diplomat, you have to focus on the language, and my class was focused on English. And that’s why four years I studied English at the university, and it was kind of an intensive way of learning.
But one thing, while we were going to university and studying English, we didn’t have a lot of people around us who spoke English, and that’s why the practical side of us wasn’t available. For me it was a different case because I was connected to some English speakers in business communities and missionary communities and teachers from the west, and so I was able to practice to some extent. But for a lot of my classmates, they never got to have a conversation with English speaker while they studied English, and that’s why by the time they graduated, the majority of them couldn’t even talk.
Later I learned some other languages alongside English. I ended up learning Norwegian. We had to leave our country because of persecution. Actually I was a pastor and the government is kind of Muslim there, and they didn’t like it and they persecuted my family and that’s why we ended up fleeing, ended up refugees living in a Persian Russia and then we ended up being UN refugees in Norway and lived three years in Norway, and I went to Norwegian language school for the first five months and I learned Norwegian.
Q: How do you feel about the dissonance between the Government appearance of modern and embracing of international relationship as opposed to the actual authoritarian practices of the government and fear of non-Turkmen influence in English education?
A: . But yeah, regarding the language they try, I think after the Soviet Union collapsed the government tried to promote English as one of the second languages, Russia and English, and they encouraged students to learn. At the same time they are afraid of communities being influenced by their culture creed and which English language in a sense represents. And that is why there is some tension in that regard. For example they will have YouTube channels or certain media platforms banned in the country so young people cannot access that. In one sense they want their people to learn English and community and grow their business community and different things. But at the same time if I were to go and try to open an English school, a private school, there are a lot of restrictions. They are very suspicious for example of someone starting up language school or English even kindergarten where you teach young kids or after school English clubs. They look very suspicious to that, and definitely they will investigate and KGB will be involved. It’s very restrictive. They’re afraid of losing power or losing influence.
Q: In terms of the general population, would you say they hold that same suspicion toward English?
A: People are in love with English. Yeah with parents its very interested to help their kids to learn or have opportunities to learn English. If there are opportunities, then I think most of the people would have been really giving their kids or learning themselves English language. They are very open to learn English because they recognize that English is an international language for communication or travelling or business or even having opportunity to go to other countries and study, study abroad. People, general population really love and want to have that opportunity, but there are not so many opportunities available to them. And government on one hand will kind of encourage them but I think schools don’t have nice good teachers because teachers never exposed to real, native English speakers themselves. They can’t even talk. For example, I remember my teacher back in my village, he was many, many years English language teacher, but when we asked him to translate for our friend who came and who wanted to communicate, he couldn’t fully converse or translate easily even though he knew that grammar and a lot of words. He never had practice. People want it and are excited and want to learn. Young people are very open. And some of the programs they have, some centers where they learn but not so many.
Q: Has English influenced the popular culture in anyway or has the government kept tight regulation on western influence?
A: Signs are still pretty much Turkmen, maybe some are English in the capital city, and for some Olympic event they had English signs. Overall, its not incorporated. And because we don’t have a lot of tourists coming through English is not used. Even though we build all of these hotels, the country is still mostly closed, and for what? The government just builds the hotels for themselves and their own ego. It’s not paying off. This investment isn’t paying off because of the restricted visa and regulations. If a foreigner comes, he will be monitored.
But the younger generation, since they watch TV and YouTube and other things, and more educated young people lean towards English. But another shift is that the population watched more Turkish shows, and influence of Turkish culture is in the older generation is big, but younger people are leaning more toward the west.