International Journal Of Literature And Languages
37
https://theusajournals.com/index.php/ijll
VOLUME
Vol.05 Issue07 2025
PAGE NO.
37-38
10.37547/ijll/Volume05Issue07-11
Teaching the Uzbekistan Language in A Tajik-
Uzbekistan Bilingual Environment
Khojiyeva Iroda Zokirjon qizi
Tashkent State University of Uzbek Language and Literature named after Alisher Navoi, Independent researcher, Uzbekistan
Received:
16 May 2025;
Accepted:
12 June 2025;
Published:
14 July 2025
Abstract:
This article presents observations on the teaching of the Uzbek language in schools where education is
conducted in Tajik and on issues of a second language in a Tajik-Uzbek bilingual environment through world
experience.
Keywords:
Tajik-Uzbek, bilingualism, schools where education is conducted in Tajik, state language education,
morphology of the Uzbek language.
Introduction:
Uzbekistan is one of the multinational
states. In terms of the ethnic composition of the
population, education is provided in 7 languages
(Uzbek, Russian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Karakalpak, Tajik,
Turkmen). The government guarantees education in
the state language, along with education in their native
language for other nationalities. In addition, most of
the country's population is considered bilingual and can
speak both their native language and Uzbek fluently. In
particular, students studying in schools where
education is conducted in Tajik use Tajik at home, while
Uzbek is used in district and city centers. They acquire
the skills of listening, understanding and speaking
Uzbek from a young age through constant
communication with representatives of the Uzbek
nationality and the media (television, radio) and grow
up as people who can speak both languages. The
reason is that the state language plays an important
role in their residence, education, entry into higher
education, and employment in Uzbekistan. However,
although language strengthens social ties and naturally
develops listening, comprehension, and speaking skills,
its internal grammatical structure, spelling, language
styles, and vocabulary are a separate subject that must
be taught by teachers-specialists.
METHOD
Several studies have been conducted in this regard in
the world, in particular, a study conducted in 2015
(Dongbo Zhang) aimed to investigate the most
appropriate methods for teaching English morphology
to bilingual children who know Malay and English.
According to it, 4th grade bilingual students of one of
the Singaporean schools, who were selected for the
experimental group, received lessons on the rules of
word formation in English for one semester. The
lessons were taught using a method called intervention
(a method of special influence, i.e. organizing daily
lessons through graphs and tables, interesting games).
The control group continued the lessons based on the
usual curriculum and textbook. The word formation
section of the morphology section was systematically
explained to students in the experimental group
through special tables, games, and tests. Initially, both
groups were given an introductory test (pre-test) and
the results were recorded, and after the completion of
the 10-week training, the experimental group
completed the full course of word-forming suffixes,
base and suffix division, paired and compound words
based on games, tables, and test tasks. When the
results of the final assessment test (post-test) obtained
at the end of the training were compared with the
results of the previous test, it was found that the
bilingual children in the experimental group performed
not only the word-forming system in English, but also
exercises and tasks related to the division of base and
suffix, and the identification of compound words in
Malay more accurately and reliably than those in the
control group. As a result of such an experiment, it was
found that the development of morphological or
International Journal Of Literature And Languages
38
https://theusajournals.com/index.php/ijll
International Journal Of Literature And Languages (ISSN: 2771-2834)
grammatical knowledge of one language in bilingual
students has a positive effect on the grammatical
structure of both languages, their morphological
awareness, vocabulary, and text comprehension level
increase, and the level of comprehension of
subsequent language sections also increases. In
addition, another such experiment was conducted in
2020 (Ana Fernandez-Dobao and Julia Herschensohn),
which tested Spanish verb tenses on bilingual speakers
who grew up in a Spanish-speaking environment
(heritage speakers) and speakers who learned Spanish
as a second language (L2 learners). The experimental
materials were selected as follows: according to it, the
participants of the experiment were given the task of
correctly using the tense forms of Spanish verbs (simple
present tense and past tense). When the results of the
task were studied, the “heritage speakers”, that is,
bilingual children who had never studied the grammar
of their language anywhere, but had been in the
language environment since childhood, made many
mistakes in the correct use of verb tenses, and they
used the same suffix they knew in different tenses to
create sentences that were wrong in content. However,
during the experiment, it was found that their listening
comprehension and speaking skills were high, and they
had problems with formal written forms. On the other
hand, second language learners (L2 learners), that is,
students who had been educated to learn the
grammatical rules of the language for a certain period
of time, used verb tenses correctly. However, it was
found that the speaking and listening comprehension
skills of second language learners were lower than
those of heritage speakers. Similarly, during the lessons
conducted by us with Tajik and Uzbek-speaking
students, it was observed that students who were
aware of the grammatical structure of the Uzbek
language also had a solid knowledge of the Tajik
language (although it belongs to a different language
family), and conversely, students who were aware of
sections such as the grammatical structure and word
formation of the Tajik language learned Uzbek
grammar quickly and easily. Therefore, we can also
come to the same conclusion as above.
RESULTS
1. Since most of the students of schools where
education is conducted in Tajik are raised in a bilingual
environment,
their
speaking
and
listening
comprehension skills are high.
2. Students who learn the language based on rules have
grammatical rules, but their listening and speaking
skills in live communication are poorly developed.
Therefore, it is appropriate to provide education based
on two different approaches, two different curricula,
and two different textbooks, regardless of the language
in which education is conducted, taking into account
their level of use of the Uzbek language.
CONCLUSION
In our country, the issue of language teaching in a
bilingual or multilingual environment is closely related
to the issue of second language teaching, that is, for
bilingual students who are representatives of another
nationality, but can understand and speak the state
language in force in the country, the Uzbek language is
considered a second language in comparison with their
native language. Therefore, it is determined that the
Uzbek language will be taught as a second language,
taking into account the needs of all nationalities and
ethnic groups in Uzbekistan, except for the Tajik
nationality. The reason is that there is an ethnic
composition of the population that can speak Uzbek
fluently and use the language for work and study, and
a population that has a relatively low need to use the
Uzbek language. So we can conclude that when
teaching the Uzbek language as a second language in
schools where education is conducted in the Tajik
language, we must take into account issues such as
their bilingualism, high level of use of the language in
authentic conditions, and the presence of listening
comprehension and speaking skills.
REFERENCES
Dongbo Zhang. Morphology in Malay-English biliteracy
acquisition:
an
intervention
study,
2015.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2015.1026873
Ana Fernandez-Dobao and Julia Herschensohn.
Acquisition of Spanish verbal morphology by child
bilinguals: Overregularization by heritage speakers and
second language learners, Cambridge University Press,
2020.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728920000310
Xojiyeva Iroda. Teaching the uzbek language (state
language)
in
secondary
schools,
2024.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12169210
.
