highest ratings: 99.19% of PhD holders and 98.29% of doctoral students say they have developed this skill to a high and very high extent. Both groups rate the following aspects nearly equally high – at a level of 90%: analysis of information, specialist knowledge, problem-solving and cooperation with people of different nationalities. Coordinating other people’s work attracted the highest number of negative ratings given by doctoral students and PhD holders (4.86% in the case of doctoral students and over 6.15% in the case of PhD holders). Doctoral students reported problems with keeping deadlines and effective time management (almost 6% of negative ratings) and with public speaking (about 5%). Command of foreign languages Respondents were asked what they thought about their command of foreign languages. They were asked about being able to communicate in the most widely spoken languages (English, German, French, Russian, Spanish, Italian) and in other less frequently taught ones. Their answers are declarative – just like in the case of competences, they are only assertions, and no additional tests were administered to confirm them. Respondents described their command of foreign languages basing on the language proficiency levels specified in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages25. The document defines six levels of language proficiency: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2. Level A denotes a basic user of a language (there are two sub-levels: A1 – breakthrough, and A2 – waystage), B – independent user (also with two sub-levels) and C – proficient user (similarly with two sub-levels). The application of the Framework to this survey was justified as respondents were familiar with it. It is used in the Polish system of education and the core curriculum relating to language education is also based on this document. Almost all respondents say they speak at least one foreign language (just one admitted not being able to speak any of the six most common languages), which is understandable as the survey was administered to people participating in international mobility during their degree programme. In principle, all respondents say they communicate in English (99.85%), which is also not surprising since this is the language most commonly taught at schools and the most extensive educational offer for Erasmus grant holders involves it. German ranks second – 65.97% say they speak the language. The remaining languages,
25. Information about ESOKJ: bit.ly/1VNkwm8 [Accessed 21.09.2018].
104
Home
