Core Curriculum for Foreigners’ Language Training in Higher Agrarian Institutions: Correlation with Common European Recommendations

1 Senior Lecturer, Department of Foreign Languages, Sumy National Agrarian University, Sumy, Ukraine, YuliyaLushchyk@bigmir.net 2 Senior Lecturer, Department of Foreign Languages, Sumy National Agrarian University, Sumy, Ukraine, trussia@ukr.net 3 Senior Lecturer, Department of Foreign Languages, Sumy National Agrarian University, Sumy, Ukraine, tsiganokanna@gmail.com Abstract: The article deals with introducing important items of the Core Curriculum for Foreign Language Training of NonResidents in Higher Agrarian Education Institutions based on CEFR and taking into account professional orientation of foreign (Ukrainian) language training (on the example of Sumy National Agrarian University, Ukraine). Different methods of research (theoretical and empirical) have been used. The Curriculum’s content (goal; objectives; principles of training; content components) has been shown. The main goal of foreign language training is identified as the students' acquisition of skills of communicative activity through the integration of communicative, learning and upbringing goals as well as deep professionalizing the future specialist. The Curriculum’s context (stages, communicative training areas) are correlated with the requirements of CEFR to meet internationally recognised standards. To monitor if the curriculum meets the students’ needs in foreign language training the questionnaires were conducted October-November, 2018. The questionnaires on students’ self-assessment of language proficiency level; learning activities preferences; situations in which foreign language is useful for; the importance of work with professionally-oriented materials were generalised. Conclusions: the important foreign language skills for agrarian students are speaking and reading ones; the preferable communicative areas are the social-cultural and the learningprofessional ones; the work with professionally-oriented materials is indicated as an important one. This confirms the appropriateness of the curriculum to international students’ needs in foreign language training. The results can be extrapolated for other higher agricultural institutions while foreign language curriculum development.


Introduction
The current tendency to the intensification of international cooperation in all spheres of life: economy, politics, culture, education approves that in post-industrial society the leading role in securing civilization progress belongs to institutions of higher education. Ukraine as a European country is also involved in it and the number of international students in Ukraine's higher education institutions is increasing. According to the Ukrainian State Center for International Education (USCIE), about 75,000 international students from 154 countries study at Ukrainian universities. The most popular are medical, technical and agrarian specialities.
According to the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the number of students intending to study at Ukrainian agrarian universities is increasing every year: for example, in 2014 there was only 1 foreign student, currently, there are 1086 students. As we see there are only 1.45 % of foreign students choose agrarian education. It doesn't mean that agricultural universities are worse or less significant than classical or non-sectorial ones. It just demonstrates that agricultural education is different. It is more practicaloriented, more specialized etc. So, a lot of specific peculiarities of agriculture should be accounted at every stage and every aspect of students' training including foreign language training.
In addition to mentioned above, the globalization processes have facilitated to the increase of the role of intercultural communication and consequently to the necessity of a knowledge of foreign languages. Hence higher education institutions must provide future specialists with proficiency at least in one of the foreign languages. So, it is especially important to find the effective ways of this subject teaching (Kostikova et al., 2019). Traditionally, teaching non-residents in Ukraine's higher education institutions is provided in Ukrainian, Russian and rarely in English.
The foreign language training in Ukraine's higher agricultural institutions take place under the following conditions: 1) internationalization of higher education on the whole (Knight & de Wit, 1997;Luchkevych, 2016;Nitenko, 2015) and agricultural one in particular (Maguire & Atchoarena, 2003;Fomenko et al., 2019); 2) enhancing the role of English as a language of international communication (Kostikova et al., 2019;Larsen-Freeman, 2000); 3) Council of Europe policy supporting the more effective learning of foreign (local) languages within the European community (Council of Europe 1969) as well as Common European Recommendations on Language Education (CEFR) development and implementation; 4) Ukraine's language policy on promoting Ukrainian as the language of higher education (Law of Ukraine, 2014).
It is evident that the successful foreign language teaching-learning process refers to activities of curriculum development and its practical application for education in HEI. The problem of designing a foreign language training curriculum is discussed in the scientific and pedagogical literature. The most considered issues are: defining the essential steps or elements in the process of curriculum development (Nicholls & Nichols, 1972;Brown, 1995); the problem of designing foreign language (mostly English) curriculum for specific purposes (Phillips & Shettlesworth, 1978;Mrowicki, 1986); the peculiarities of language curriculum for foreign students in local languages both for preparatory departments of the HEI (Shlenova et al., 2019;Proskurkina, 2013;Ivanyshyn, 2015) and bachelor's degree courses (Bey & Trostynska, 2008).
Profound interest of modern scholars in the problem of foreign language curriculum development determined the relevance of our study. However, the matter of interrelationship between the development of Core Curriculum for Foreign Language Training (Ukrainian) in Higher Agrarian Education Institutions and Common European Framework Of Reference For Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment was not the issue of thorough consideration. Under such conditions, there are important question to be answered: how foreign language programmes for international students' training refers to internationally recognised standards of language education (such as CEFR), if the curriculum developed under the CEFR provisions with professional agricultural orientation meets the students' needs in language training.

General characteristics
The aim of the research was to highlight key methodological issues in drawing up the Core Curriculum for Foreign Language Training (Ukrainian) of Non-Residents in Higher Agrarian Education Institutions in accordance with CEFR in order to provide a framework for organization of the teaching-learning process (on the example of Sumy National Agrarian University, Ukraine). The objectives of the article were:  to consider the Curriculum's content (goal; objectives; principles of foreign language training; content components);  to introduce the Curriculum's context (stages, communicative training areas) correlating with levels of foreign language training of CEFR;  to determine if the curriculum appropriately addresses the students' needs.
To reach the third objective and to monitor if the Core Curriculum meets the international students' needs in foreign (Ukrainian) language training 250 international students of SNAU were given to fill in questionnaires. There were 164 students of the principal stage of studying (the 1 st and 2 d years of bachelor's degree studying) and 86 students of the final stage of studying (the 3 d and the 4 th years of studying).
Besides the following features of uniformity of the group can be noted: 1) the students were about of the same age (from 20 to 24 years old); 2) they were foreigners; 3) they were obtaining bachelor's degree in a foreign country (Ukraine) in a foreign language (Ukrainian) in a daily form of study in the field of agriculture; 4) they completed the preparatory course and had studied Ukrainian as a foreign language at the preparatory department in the Ukrainian universities. We note that the gender specification is not the subject of the conducted research. The main selection criteria were their previous experience of studying foreign (Ukrainian) language and obtaining higher agricultural education in foreign (Ukrainian) language. All students gave written consent to participation in the research. The possibility of withdrawing without any consequences on their status was informed to them. The survey was conducted on October-November, 2018 at the beginning of the principal and final stages of foreign language training.
The study hypothesized that the Core Curriculum based on the CEFR and taking into account the professional orientation to agriculture is adequate to students' needs obtaining higher agricultural education.

Methods
According to the purpose and the set of the tasks the following methods were used in the research: Theoretical methods. Analysis and synthesis were applied to collect and study information on the conditions of foreign language training of international students in agricultural Higher Education Institutions of Ukraine; analysis and synthesis for the identification and systematization of the main directions of researches in the scientific and pedagogical literature in the context of the problem; description, analysis and synthesis for characterization key components of the Core Curriculum of language training of agrarians in Ukraine's universities and peculiarities of methodological toolkit: goals, objectives and content of the Curriculum.
Empirical (diagnostic) methods. Questionnaires, meetings and discussions were used to find out the needs of foreign students on learning a foreign (Ukrainian) language. Questionnaires, meetings and discussions regarded to students' language use in everyday communication, studying, and professional training.
Questionnaires are considered to be one of the most widespread instruments used. They can be conducted with a large number of students and provide with significant information (Artino et. al., 2014;McLeod, 2018). According to McLeod (2018) questionnaires can be an effective means of measuring the behaviour, attitudes, preferences, opinions.
We have designed a special questionnaire to receive quantitative information. To elaborate the questionnaires, we followed "7 steps methodology" by Artino et. al. (2014).
The questionnaire consisted of 4 parts based on a set of structured items (in which the respondents chose from a limited range of responses). Authors gathered information on the following: self-assessment language proficiency level; learning activities preferences; situations in which foreign (Ukrainian) language is useful for, the importance of work with professionally-oriented materials during foreign language learning.
The quantitative data were obtained from the questionnaires given to respondents of the research. After each question in the questionnaire had been answered, the result was transformed into percentage of answers. The percentage (p) of the answer was got by using the following formula: (p -percentage; f -frequency of respondents of each statement; F -the whole number of respondents). The calculation results were rounded to integers following the rounding rules.

Results
Currently, SNAU has established groups in which both foreign and local (Ukrainian) students are taught. The university has also consciously abandoned the widespread practice of particular groups when foreigners study separately from local students, implementing the principle of equality.
Bearing in mind that foreign (Ukrainian) language is used by international students for both communicating in foreign language environment and getting higher agricultural education the Core Curriculum for Foreign April, 2020 Educaţie Multidimensională Volume 12, Issue 1 Sup. 1 Language Training (Ukrainian) of Non-Residents in Higher Agrarian Education Institutions has been developed. It is underpinned by the CEFR as well as Unified model curriculum in the Ukrainian language for foreign students of the main faculties of the non-philological profile of higher educational institutions of Ukraine (Dziubenko et. al., 2009) CEFR provisions are used as a basis for formulating the goal and objectives of language training of foreign students of agricultural HEI.
Thus, teaching the foreign language for international students in higher agrarian educational establishments in conditions of language environment is primarily aimed to the students' acquisition of skills of communicative activity. It is achieved through a comprehensive approach to specialists' training, which integrates interaction of communicative, learning and upbringing goals. The acquisition of a foreign language as the language of education should result in personal multilingualism, in which the foreign language will play the role of an equal means of personal professional and cultural development.
The communicative goal is the main one since both learning and upbringing goals are realized if the students achieve a certain level of language proficiency. It is gained by developing the necessary students' language and communicative skills in every type of communicative activity (reading, listening, speaking, writing), providing them with the opportunity to communicate in a language environment (study, life, culture, agricultural profession) of another country (Ukraine) and obtain a speciality.
The final objectives of the training are structured in the form of specific stage-by-stage outcomes. They are achieved throughout the term of study.
In accordance with current trends in the methodology of foreign language training, the Core Curriculum was settled by general and linguisticdidactic principles, which enable the effective achievement of the goal and the accomplishment of the corresponding tasks.
Foreign language training of non-residents is based on the wide range of didactic principles. They are the following ones: humanism; the principle of unity of learning, personal development and upbringing; scientific; systematic; consistency; awareness; accessibility; principle of continuity and perspective; connection of theory with practice; differentiation and individualization; implementation of different forms of learning activity; principle of cross-cultural dialogue and using of cross-curricular links as well as principle of professionalization.
Obligatory requirement for the realization of the tasks of foreigners' language training is observance of the lingvo-didactic principles of commu-nicativeness, taking into account communicative needs, interrelated types of communicative activity, gradualism and concentricity in the presentation of language material, its complex and situationally thematic organization, reliance on a text as a basic unit of learning, a contrasting approach demonstrating the difference between the foreign and the mother tongue.
Since the decisive factor in modern society is a person who is able to act on the basis of the acquired knowledge and application it in practice, including the principle of professionalism is of great importance. It means increasing attention to a specific speciality. The specific essence of the agriculture and professional disciplines was brought into the content of the curriculum as closely as possible to ensures the coordination of language training to required professional material.
Foreign language students training in the learning and professional area is dominant at all stages of study and according to the developed Core Curriculum takes up to 70% of the total study time. Language (Ukrainian) learning for foreign agrarian students which study in a foreign country (Ukraine) is the basis of professional training in their chosen speciality, and the language itself is a means of obtaining agricultural education. So the main task in foreign language classes is to develop students' speaking skills in communication which the educational activity including, for instance, speeches at seminars and practical classes; reading skills based on materials in general and special disciplines in accordance with agrarian profile of studies; writing skills dealing with writing abstracts, essays and thesis (bachelor's degree papers); and listening skills concerning the listening and understanding of lectures on the profile of studying, different information from mass media resources. The subjects of materials of learning and professional areas are determined by the content of disciplines in the speciality of students. Also, in the fourth year of studying the subject is consistent with the scientific theme of the student's bachelor's degree papers.
According to the Core Curriculum the development of communicative skills in the socio-cultural area is carried out in the context of intercultural communication when the student's personality is a full carrier of cultural information. It is organized as a process of exchange of socio-cultural information.
Training in the social, political and official business areas of communication is conducted in accordance with the requirements of communicative needs of students in these spheres.
The content of foreign language training for non-residents in agrarian higher education providers combines three interrelated content components (linguistic, communicative, socio-cultural) that have their own peculi-April, 2020 Educaţie Multidimensională Volume 12, Issue 1 Sup. 1 203 arities. Content is determined according to the communicative needs of foreigners, so it may vary depending on the stage, level and specialization of training.
The linguistic content component contains the basic linguistic units, concepts, facts, regularities that provide the knowledge capacity, optimal for the formation of foreign students' communicative skills and abilities in accordance with the language training goals. This knowledge is the basis for the acquisition of both language structure and the literary language. The linguistic material, which is universal for all communicative areas, is gradually acquired at the reproductive and productive levels.
The communicative content component defines the essence of the work aimed at forming the communicative competence of foreigners, which, in turn, provides for the harmonious development of skills in the main types of communicative activity (listening, reading, speaking, and writing). It is the ability to perceive and understand oral and written speech, independently create oral and written, dialogical and monologic statements of different types, styles, genres of speech in different areas of communication, first of all, learning and professional ones; to use varieties of listening and reading; to engage in dialogue following the requirements of speech etiquette; to express one's thoughts correctly and relevantly; to analyse texts; to evaluate and to improve one's communicative activity.
The socio-cultural content component is aimed at the formation of socio-cultural competence, which is created during the introduction of foreigners with the peculiarities of the culture of the country of education and speech behaviour of native speakers in various communication situations, which implies the development of abilities and skills to use this knowledge in the communication. The culture of the country where the student is pursuing higher education is an integral component of the studying process, providing intercultural communication in which the foreign student is a full participator in a "dialogue of cultures".
It is clear that the main training unit is the text of professional, socio-cultural or socio-political focus. It should be noted that the authentic learning and scientific texts (with varying degrees of adaptation according to the level of students' knowledge), which correspond to the future profession, are used for future agrarians' training. So at the principle stage the following topics are proposed: life in the city and at the countryside; agricultural professions, farm work in different seasons, types of modern farms, agriculture in Ukraine, agriculture at EU, agriculture at student's country. The topics of the final of foreign language training focus on the relation between the individual and the professional world; agriculture-related environmental issues in the modern society; organic farming; sustainable agriculture, farming in the 21 st century, agrarian policy in Ukraine, EU, student's country; "out of the box" initiatives in modern agriculture. In addition, there are the topics specified by the language teachers in close cooperation with the teachers of specialized disciplines (Agronomy, Soil Science, Animal Physiology, Animal Breeding, etc.) inherent in the student's chosen branch of study.
Structurally, the language training of foreigners in the agrarian higher education institutions of Ukraine corresponds to the main stages of the 4year educational process for obtaining a bachelor's degree. However, according to the CEFR, there are six levels of foreign language proficiency. They range from the basic to the virtually perfect level of language proficiency. This classification allows understanding the content of each particular level of language proficiency. Traditionally, language training of foreigners in Ukraine's higher education providers is seen through division into stages. The system of CEFR levels, put into practice in Ukrainian universities can be presented as follows (Table 1). As language training for foreigners is considered as a unity of three components: language (objective -communicative competence), general science (objective -general/professional competence), adaptation (objective -adaptation to realities and tasks of life in a foreign language environment) April, 2020 Educaţie Multidimensională Volume 12, Issue 1 Sup. 1 205 ones, so the students' programme of higher education provides for the selection of material in such communicative areas of study as learningprofessional, socio-cultural, socio-political and official-business. The principal stage of study (I-II years) is a period in the learning process, during which foreign students acquire and improve skills necessary in the learning-professional and socio-cultural areas to pursue a bachelor's degree. At the same time, first-year students acquire the essential skills and abilities for reading professionally oriented literature, listening to lectures, speaking reproductively and productively in oral and written forms. In the second year more advanced skills and abilities in mastering all kinds of communicative activity are formed.
The final stage of study (III-IV years) is a period in the learning process during which foreign students acquire and improve all skills necessary for studying in the higher educational institution. During the third year students develop skills and abilities in reproductive-productive and productive kinds of communicative activity, necessary for reading and working out scientific texts, preparation of materials for reports, discussions on learningprofessional, socio-political and socio-cultural topics; skills of introducing official business texts are formed; during the fourth year the acquired skills and abilities in all kinds of communicative activity, necessary for preparation for the defense of the bachelor's degree paper are improved.
To determine if an existing programme appropriately addresses the students' requirements the authors conducted needs analysis. Needs analysis is considered to be an important step in curriculum development with a lot of purposes. A variety of procedures can be used while students' need analysis is carried out. When the needs analysis the authors used questionnaires, meetings and discussions.
For self-assessing their language proficiency level the descriptors grounded on CEFR were proposed to students. Indicating their current foreign (Ukrainian) language level 10% of students of the principal stage pointed out as a breakthrough level A1; 21% of respondents as waystage level A2; 69% of respondents as threshold level B1. Final stage students characterising their language proficiency level pointed out threshold level B1 (15%); vantage level B2 (84%); effective operational proficiency level C1 (1%) (see table 2). Thus, at the beginning of every stage of foreign language training the level of students' language proficiency corresponds to parameters stated by the curriculum.
The most important foreign language (Ukrainian) skills for agrarian students of the principal stage of studying are speaking skills and reading skills. 83% and 65% of respondents respectively indicated them as very important ones (see table 3). The students of the final stage also pointed out speaking skills (80% of respondents) and reading ones (73% of respondents) as very important (see table 4). Moreover, the importance of writing skills for students of the final stage is higher (46% of respondents indicated them as very important) as compared with the principal stage students (35% of respondents indicated them as very important) (see table 3, 4).
The students were asked to answer the question: "What situations is Ukrainian very useful/ useful/not useful for you?" A set of 15 questions was given. Indicating the situations of language use the students of the principal stage of training pointed out that foreign language (Ukrainian) is very useful them for communicating to native speakers (100% of respondents), buying food and goods (98% of respondents), getting information about services and goods (99% of respondents), playing sports and participating in social clubs (93% of respondents), visiting different parts of Ukraine (73% of respondents). So it shows that they are interested in language use in the sociocultural communicative sphere.
100% of students of the final stage indicated that Ukrainian is very useful them for the same activities as on the principal stage. Besides they found the foreign language for working with scientific materials (35% of respondents); working with learning and professional literature on their future speciality in agriculture (37% of respondents); developing skills on business communication (27%) was also very useful. So as we can judge at this stage of studying students feel the necessity to develop their skills in the learningprofessional area.
Monitoring students' attitude to work with professionally oriented materials we found out that at the principal stage of studying 38% of respondents considered it very important. At the final stage 57% of respondents considered it very important (see table 5). So there is a tendency that students attach increasing importance of working with professionally oriented materials at the final stage of studying.

Discussion
The analysis of modern scholar's works about foreign language curriculum development shows it as a matter of great importance.
We agree that curriculum designing is primarily a how-to-do activity (Nation, 2010). Also, it covers a wide range of steps or elements mostly such as learners' needs determining, analysis the context for the programme, the planning of the learning outcomes, the organization of the course, the selection and preparation of teaching materials, provision for of effective teaching, and evaluation of the programme. Elements referred to above are constituted as a set of interrelated components (Nicholls & Nichols, 1972;Richards, 2001;Nation, 2010).
Moreover, we share the opinion that allocating and clear formulating structural elements of modern foreign language (Ukrainian) curriculum namely learning goals and objectives, principles, programme characteristics underpins foreign language learning-teaching process (Bey & Trostynska, 2008, Kasianenko, 2013, Shelest, 2018, Pikulytska & Baidak, 2018. CEFR provides the grounds for identifying internationally recognised standards of language training and it is an institution's mission to implement them appropriately in the curriculum. Scholars considered foreign language curriculum for specific purposes (for agricultural specialities, for instance) should provide clear relevance of the language course to the learners' professional needs thereby improving their motivation and making learning better and faster (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987;Dudley-Evans & John, 1998). The professional orientation of the foreign language curriculum provides students with the ground for both mastering language and future speciality in agriculture (Veranita et al., 2017;Coroama, 2016).
Definitely, work with professionally focused materials included in the curriculum covers extra-linguistic objectives: getting acquainted with scientific publications in the agricultural industries; finding out new developments and research to advance the industry; search and selection of materials for scientific and practical activities, i.e. obtaining information that would supplement and enhance the learning material that students acquire in the process of studying specialized disciplines; and, equally important, the development of skills for further self-study in the speciality (Lushchyk, 2016).
As learners are the key participants in curriculum development projects (Richards, 2001;Nation, 2010) it is essential to collect about them as much information as possible. Revealing students' needs is considered to be a good tool to achieve learning outcomes of foreign language training of agricultural students covering their communicational, social-cultural and professional requirements (Veranita et al., 2017;Coroama, 2016).
So the analysis of data obtained from questionnaires shows that the foreign (Ukrainian) language is used by international students not only as a mean for solving their primary social problems but also, most importantly, as the language of the socio-cultural environment. In addition to, the foreign (Ukrainian) language, being the language of higher education or the language of study, is not only an educational subject but also a means of comprehensive life-long development and a guide for future agrarians in their formation as professional personalities.
In other words, our study confirms previous researches about foreign language curriculum development. Besides it should be mentioned that the authors' contribution brought by this paper to the new knowledge to this area is that first in Ukrainian pedagogical science conducted the study dealing with the development of foreign (Ukrainian) language curriculum for international agrarian students. The results represent the fact that the curriculum meets students' needs.
Our study can be extrapolated for other higher agricultural institutions involved in international students training both in Ukraine and abroad while foreign language curriculum development. As agriculture degrees provide the requisite underpinning in physical, chemical, biological or nutritional principles, economic and business analysis, human behaviour and social and environmental contexts, it is necessary to include in each foreign language course many elements that, on one hand, are subject-specific, and on the other hand with a clear focus on language proficiency and communicative activity.
Whilst higher agricultural education is becoming increasingly labour market-led, the research reported here promotes cooperation between language teachers, teachers of agricultural disciplines and students. Such collaboration brought insights and wide information data in agricultural education. This approach serves to redress the "disconnect" between knowledge providers and knowledge users in higher education institutions.

Conclusion
So generalization of the study results give us the opportunity to conclude: 1) the Core Curriculum for Foreign Language Training (Ukrainian) of Non-Residents in Higher Agrarian Education Institutions provides an important methodological prerequisite for foreign language training of interna-tional students through adequate formulating goal; objectives; principles (general and linguistic-didactic) of foreign language training; content components by providing the student with the linguistic knowledge necessary for mastering the language of specific subjects, enriching knowledge through work with professionally-oriented materials at foreign language classes, as well as developing communication skills to meet social, community and professional needs; 2) the curriculum integrates the key aspects of CEFR and took into account communicative and professionally oriented needs of the learners as subjects of the educational process; 3) needs analysis confirms that the curriculum meets to students' requirements.