Linguistic competence in tertiary-level instruction in English and its relevance for student mobility

Student and teacher mobility are important aspects of education within the Bologna Process. Overcoming the language barrier is a precondition for following and providing instruction in a foreign language. A survey was conducted among first-year undergraduate students to determine their readiness for instruction in English. The survey results show the respondent profile, their assessment of instruction within an English language course, using other ways of acquiring knowledge and self-assessment of their command of English. The students' self-assessment of motivation for learning English and its relevance for their profession are presented along with students' interest in other courses offered in English. It turns out that, regardless of a satisfactory level of self-assesed competence in English and motivation for learning English, students are not willing to enroll in the offered study courses in English. This may indicate that all the precoditions for mobility have not been fulfilled. The survey results are compared with the corresponding results of another, more comprehensive, survey among graduate students at the Faculty of Organization and Informatics conducted at the whole University of Zagreb. Althouh the results obtained in the two surveys are not identical, they roughly correspond.