This article analyzes the experience of introducing Inquiry-based learning approach by Kazakhstani university English as a second foreign language teachers. Inquiry-based learning at different times had different content, ranging from the student-centered learning, aimed at solving specific problems and aimed at working in small groups, to more expanded content, including such concepts as the formation of students’ critical, logical, divergent thinking. Inquiry-based learning today is such an approach to teaching, in which students show cognitive abilities in building strategies that solve problems of a pragmatic professional nature, relying on their life experience, knowledge about the problem, and on the available information.

The study employed qualitative research methods, namely: interviews and an open-ended survey, in which teachers of professional English took part, the purpose of which was to determine the frequency, effectiveness and problems of using this approach in professionally oriented foreign language classes.