Academic mobility: some challenges for non-linguistic students

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Academic mobility: some challenges for non-linguistic students

Tamara Babenko, Ph.D.(Pedagogy), Associate Professor, Head of the Foreign Languages Department of Psychology and Sociology Faculties, Institute of Philology Kyiv Taras Shevchenko National University

Abstract

The article is motivated by the problems which are seen as obstacles on the way to joining academic mobility projects. Among these problems we define unacceptable level of language proficiency of an average school leaver as well as unsatisfactory status offoreign languages both at schools and University faculties not majoring in English. The examination in foreign languages at the External National Evaluation (ENE) for the Ukrainian school leavers is optional and, accordingly, it forms the pupils ' attitude towards this school subject and only few of them, seeking for higher education at non-linguistic faculties, take this examination. The research conducted across 2013/20142018 years proved that only 44, 8 % of first grade students had B1-B2 benchmarks in EGP (English for General Purposes). Moreover, English, as a discipline, at the faculties not majoring in this subject, is considered, at the best, obligatory for the first grade students or, at the worst, is not taught at all. As a consequence, the ignorance of some senior students in foreign languages prevents them from participation in learning mobility projects at outbound Universities.

Keywords: academic mobility; foreign languages; the External National Evaluation (ENE); ESP (English for Specific Purposes); university students; non-linguistic faculties.

Тамара Бабенко, кандидат педагогічних наук, доцент, завідувач кафедри іноземних мов факультетів психології та соціології Інституту філології Київського національного університету імені Тараса Шевченка

АКАДЕМІЧНА МОБІЛЬНІСТЬ: ЩО ЗАВАЖАЄ СТУДЕНТАМ НЕФІЛОЛОГІЧНИХ ФАКУЛЬТЕТІВ

Однією з проблем, що не дає студентам нефілологічних факультетів у повній мірі скористатися перевагами академічної мобільності, є недостатнє володіння іноземною мовою. Як свідчать багаторічні тестування, лише 44,8 % вступників мають рівень володіння мовою В 1-В 2. Корені цієї проблеми полягають у тому, що для більшості нефілологічних факультетів іноземна мова не є конкурсною дисципліною, що й впливає на ставлення учнів до цього предмету під час навчання у школі. Недостатній рівень володіння іноземною мовою у подальшому заважає активній участі студента у проектах з академічної мобільності та негативно впливає на професійне зростання.

Ключові слова: академічна мобільність; іноземні мови; ЗНО (Зовнішнє Незалежне Оцінювання); професійно-орієнтована англійська мова; студенти університету; нелінгвістичні факультети.

Statement of the problem. Being part of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), Ukrainian universities are reforming their educational systems to achieve competitiveness within home universities as well as to attract foreign students and enforce academic mobility process, one of the means of cultural exchange and scientific development of nations. Academic mobility is especially valuable for such countries as Ukraine, the people of which hope to improve their lives by introducing genuine democratic reforms in all spheres of life. In this regard, mobility gives opportunities to estimate the experience of European countries, evaluate the advantages of democratic societies, overcome cultural and educational diversities, and to set the aim, Ukrainian universities should move to. One of the most urgent preconditions of academic mobility is a good command of the English language. The proficiency in English language skills is a kind of a marker showing the level of preparedness for entering the European community, but a great part of Ukrainian students are deficient in foreign languages and experience great difficulties while participating in academic activities, such as lectures, workshops, international conferences conducted in English. The aim of the article is to disclose the problems which hinder a number of Ukrainian students to participate in academic mobility projects; to highlight the necessity of improving English language teaching for school children; to prove the need of introducing ESP (English for Specific Purposes) as a normative discipline into the University Curriculum for students doing their Bachelor's degree at all the faculties not majoring in English. language academic mobility

Analysis of resent researches and publications. Different aspects of academic mobility problems are being discussed in all European countries - members of European Higher Education Area (EHEA): general impact of academic mobility on the process of integration into the world scientific area (Hrishchuk U., 2014) [2]; its financial problems (Byram M. and Dervin F., 2008) [8]; the influence of academic mobility and the English language on cultural enrichment and professionally oriented knowledge (Platkova A.,2014) [3]; teaching a professionally oriented foreign language to the students of non- linguistic universities as "a means of intercultural and international communication" (Tymoshchuk N., 2019) [7]; the role of foreign languages teaching and learning for academic mobility and gaining professional success (ET National Report for Estonia, 2016) [11]; vocationally oriented foreign language learning as a premise for students' scientific activity (T. Babenko, 2015) [1]; the difficulties universities face while preparing mobility projects (O. Zabolotna, 2015) [12]. Still, some of the problems underpinning the reasons of non-linguistic faculty students' deficiency in foreign languages - the benchmarks with which they enter the university and how they influence their further language acquisition and learning mobility - have not been researched yet.

The main parts of the research. Speaking about learning mobility, the Council and the Commission on the implementation of the Strategic Framework for European cooperation in education and training mentions that: "Limited financial resources and inadequate language knowledge are a brake to learning mobility" [9]. It seems obvious nowadays to consider the knowledge of a foreign language as a must for every graduate and school leaver, but, nevertheless, a poor command of foreign languages remains one of the obstacles which rather often hinder Ukrainian students to join academic mobility projects. If M. Byram and F. Dervin consider finance "a major factor in student's mobility" [8, 3], the Ukrainian university funding students experience one more difficulty that cannot be solved in a couple of days. And it is a foreign language.

The idea of introducing ESP into the university curriculums is supported by many Ukrainian scholars who consider language course one of the first conditions of preparing for a mobility project [12, 49], a precondition of forming professional mobility of future specialists [4, 130] and a premise for future scientific activity [1, 37]. Grounding on the objectives of the Foreign Language Strategy, National Report for Estonia, for example, declares that "the majority of population should be fluent in, at least, two languages in addition to their native language, because it "enables graduates to be more successful in the labour market and creates preconditions for national mobility" [11, 14].

Each year at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv is started for the first grade students with a diagnostic test (Assessment on Entry), which gives a chance to determine their levels in one of the foreign languages* and "facilitate streaming" [5, 44]. So, we had a possibility to collect the data and conduct a qualitative research in a span of 6-7 years across 2013/2014-2018. The results are displayed in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2.

The presented table (Fig.1) shows that in 20132017 at the Faculty of Psychology the percentage of students having B2-B1 is much lower than of those whose level was determined as A0. Besides, in 20132014, the most powerful was a group of students with A1 -A2 entry levels while, according to the recommendations of the National Curriculum for Universities [5,2], the level which allows productive teaching of ESP is B1.The obtained data show that the number of the first grade students, who needed some preparatory language training, is rather discouraging to let the students "bridge the gap" [5, 29] on their own without any support. For example, in 2013 the percentage of students who needed to be taught EGP (English for General Purposes) first before taking ESP course was 79,4%; in 2014 - 68,9%; 2015 - 74,6%; 2016 - 69,6; 2017 - 57,6% and in 2018 - 32,9%. In 2018, the situation started changing for the best, but it is too early to speak about a positive tendency.

Entry levels in Foreign Languages at the Faculty of Psychology (2013 - 2018)