Abstract
It seems obvious that that educational activity establishes conditions for the development of a person capable of combining ancestral traditions and values while maintaining their distinctive ethnoculture. This paper investigates how integrating ethnocultural material into English for Specific Purposes (ESP) university courses contributes to nation-building and students’ identity development while at the same time exerting impact on ESP curriculum advancement. The empirical part of the research involved 104 first-year engineering students learning English as a foreign language for specific purposes. The experiment demonstrated that exposing students to regional material and enabling them to communicate in English about their region empowers them in their national and regional identity, while contributing to nation-building goals of university education. The findings of the study reveal that integrating ethnocultural material into ESP university courses positively impacts both students’ motivation and their national identity development.
 
 Keywords: Ethnocultural material, ESP, national identity, nation-building, students, criteria, reflection.
Highlights
The Republic of Kazakhstan, a country in the central part of Eurasia, former member of the USSR, appeared on the map as an independent state only in 1991
The actual level of mastery of the ethnocultural material and reflection upon it are considered as a result
We considered the positive results of the regional topic-related tests as proof of students’ readiness to solve national tasks on the basis of axiology-based experience
Summary
The Republic of Kazakhstan, a country in the central part of Eurasia, former member of the USSR, appeared on the map as an independent state only in 1991. Kazakhstan is one of the 10 largest countries in the world, ranking 9th in the world in terms of territory. Located between Europe and Asia, Kazakhstan boasts of a rich history. It was of great importance for the civilisations of the ancient world, since it used to be a significant part of the Silk Road, which connected the East and the West, and was central to the economic, cultural, political and religious interactions between the regions from the 2nd century BCE to the 18th century. The territory of Kazakhstan was previously inhabited by nomads. The name of the native people – Kazakhs – has Turkic roots and in translation means ‘free people’
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