President of the Discussion Club of the D. Serikbayev EKSTU, Darkhan Ashimov, participated at the first International Student Conference for future teacher "Teaching and learning English during the transition to trilingual education: research, problems and successes." The event took place in Shymkent on March 14-15, 2018. The organizer of the conference was Kazakhstan Teachers of English Association (KazTEA) with the support of Oxford University Press and Diplomatic Mission of the USA in the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The conference was participated by Regional Director Office of Language Programs of State Department of USA, doc. Timothy Collins; Methodist of "Oxford University Press" in Yemen, Lebanon and Kazakhstan, Paul Woodfall; and the English language specialist of the State Department of USA, Sandra Lee.

The conference aim was distinguishing of the basic issues for training of teachers, who conduct lectures on the foreign language; discussion of challenges and their solutions in the field of trilingual education and training on updated programs; and also discussion of the creative approaches taking into account the state program and tasks of the modern school. In particular, education based on the competence approach of training in accordance with the state program for the development and functioning of the trilingual education in the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Darkhan participated in the conference with presentation of the new format TEDx, which was noted by the diploma as the best speech. Theme of the presentation was use of experience of EKSTU's Debate Club in order of improving the English language skills and overcoming the language barrier.

According to him, this conference reveals great opportunities for each participant.

‘It's a rare opportunity to meet such people, who are also interested in the trilingual development policy as you are' tells Darkhan Ashimov. - ‘Conference was conducted in sessions, which are aimed on the different teaching methods. Talking about methods, it's a good view of students from the inside, not a dry theory, but the material that is passed through by each of the participants. Such conferences reveal full and clear picture of what means should be used, and the use of which should be reviewed. Also, it is a great opportunity to meet foreign experts of high qualification and learn the secrets of their teaching methods. I would like to express my deep gratitude to the organizer of the conference, Tatiana Letyaykina, and my mentor and scientific adviser Tatiana Kolesnikova.

Today, one of the biggest issues on the development of colloquial speech in English and the most common problem of students of the East Kazakhstan State Technical University, who study English, is the overcoming of the language barrier. The use of a discussion platform is one of the solutions to this problem.

We'd like to remind that Debate Club in English started in the American Corner in 2015. After huge success, EKSTU's students, Zhetybai Baitenov and Adilbek Rustemov, decided to share the idea of this platform and created "Freedom" Debate Club in the EKSTU. The club functions on the basis of student self-management. Organizers of club see how debate participants noticeably improve their English level and overcome the painful language barrier. Debates are a good platform to encourage students to use their skills of English language for discussion of popular topics and social problems.

Club offers special literature for the debates and helps students to improve use of language structures. A kind of "scaffolding" technique or support for the development of language skills is used. Debates are usually conducted according to the Carl Popper's system, which is also a good challenge for new participants. Mentors objectively evaluate participants, which helps them to learn on their own mistakes. As the result, students receive set of skills, which help them to overcome fear of public performances. Club is visited by foreign guests, who participate either in the debates themselves or different discussions.

According to the interviews, 8 of 10 students noticed improvement of their speaking skills. 3 participants successfully passed interview for participation in the Academic mobility program. "Freedom" Debate Club was invited for conducting of multilingual debates between universities of the city. Debates have become a good tool for overcoming of language barrier.