ИСТИНА

The topicality of the study is determined by the discord between the foreign language teaching standards in Russian universities and undergraduate and graduate students’ requirements orientated towards the modern labor market. Having obtained a specialty, university graduates may work in different fields or change their job profile altogether; borders of professions and professional standards are undergoing changes as well. The aim of the study is to show the necessity to transform foreign language courses at the tertiary level in accordance with the recent and ongoing changes in the job market. The following tasks are to be solved: 1) to single out the most in-demand soft skills basing on the analysis of reputable research of the labor market; 2) to determine whether these soft skills can be developed in a foreign language class; 3) to use the students’ feedback to check the students’ interest in the foreign language standards undergoing changes which are suggested in the study. The hypothesis of the study is that foreign language teaching standards in Russia should integrate the communicative competence, critical and creative thinking, and learning to learn as necessary components. It is suggested that students of non-philological specialties should be taught two or three foreign languages instead of only advancing their command of English. The hypothesis was confirmed by the polls conducted among undergraduate and graduate students of the College of Asian and African Studies (CAAS, Lomonosov MSU), over 2019-2020. The study resulted in developing a new standard of teaching foreign languages at the CAAS, which includes teaching two European languages alongside an oriental/African one, and creating a new structure of the English language course orientated towards developing soft skills rather than a purely linguistic component. Thus, the study seeks to substantiate the need for the new standard by the requirements of the modern job market and graduates’ demands. Creating the new standard targeting soft skills development and teaching two European languages is a practical result of this work.