This paper describes ideologies of parents, Russian-speaking urban middle-class Kazakhs, on schooling their children in Kazakh. The choice of Kazakh as MOI is typically presented as the only way for children whose home language is Russian to learn Kazakh, which is viewed as required for social mobility in increasingly nationalizing state. The analysis of interactions reveals how the tension between parents and teachers, as members of different social groups, surfaces in everyday talk. Examination of metalinguistic commentary shows that only certain aspects of the second language acquisition process are foregrounded in this metalinguistic activity. Ignoring progress in children's acquisition of Kazakh, the adults appear to selectively focus on a particular lexical set of words dealing with discipline. Adults perceive Kazakh that children learn first in schools as limited to rather rude directives such as 'shut up' or 'stand up' they believe kids constantly hear from their teachers. By doing so, parents systematically construct teachers as rude, uneducated, and uncultured and thus re-produce a negative image of Kazakh schools and teachers. Emergence of this selective metalinguistic activity signals about deeper social issues of class and status shaping the processes of Kazakh revival in urban areas.
