Abstract
Increasing workplace demands on foreign languages skills in professional settings call for a number of considerable changes in the university learning context regarding foreign language teaching. The present study aimed to assess the language needs within and across employed university graduates, first, third, and fourth-year students of non-language majors to further inform such changes. All four language skills, the context of both current foreign language education programs and the use of a foreign language at the workplace were considered. Questionnaires including Likert scale, multiple choice, and open-ended items were distributed among 110 students and 35 currently employed graduates. Descriptive statistics and one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) followed by Tukey HSD and Holm-Bonferroni tests were used to analyze the data. The results indicated several areas of agreement among the participants: A clear need for all four language skills to be developed as high as C2 level and the consistent need to improve speaking. However, several noticeable discrepancies between the perceptions of the target groups regarding the context of workplace language use, such as how often, where, and with whom they expect to communicate, and need for professionally oriented foreign language were revealed. Overall, students may need to be more informed about the challenges regarding the workplace context for language use.
Highlights
MethodsThe participants in this study were 110 non-linguistic major Language for Specific Purposes (LSP) students of the School of World Economy and International Affairs (NRU HSE): 40 first-year students, 31 students from the third year, and 39 students in their fourth year of study in the spring term of 2015
As for the in-service graduates, our findings revealed that the overwhelming majority of them (60%) use English as the main foreign language in their professional contexts, followed by Japanese (9%), Chinese (9%), and other languages
The graduates mostly worked in Russia (68.6%) but roughly one-third (31.4%) were employed abroad, with only 5.7% employed in an English-speaking country
Summary
The participants in this study were 110 non-linguistic major LSP students of the School of World Economy and International Affairs (NRU HSE): 40 first-year students, 31 students from the third year, and 39 students in their fourth year of study in the spring term of 2015. Responses were collected from 35 graduates of the School of World Economy and International Affairs (NRU HSE) from the years 2007-2012. The age of the responding students was in the range of 17-23 years with the mean of 17.45, 19.41, and 20.9 for the first, third, and fourth-year student groups respectively. The graduates were in the 28-30 age group with 16% of the respondents defining their age as being over 30. Two participants (graduates) were non-Russian native speakers (Armenian)
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