Topic: starting from Bologna process quality has been a topical issue in tertiary education. Raising and maintaining the quality of education can be crucial factor in developing economy and raising the welfare of EU citizens. Special attention in EU has always been paid to language learning. EU policy is to promote sustainable development of all EU languages, broaden and widen intercultural communication. Professional foreign language competence is necessary for successful entering of EU labor market. Nevertheless in the Republic of Latvia state level research (Profesionālās un augstākās izglītības programmu atbilstība darba tirgus prasībām, 2007) about the employability of graduates of Latvian higher education institutions shows that graduate foreign language skills are the worst developed ones from all key competences. Quality assurance can be one of the ways of raising the quality of professional foreign language study courses.

For quality management on the level of higher education institution or study Program in EU higher education institutions it is recommended to use EFQM model and self-assessment instrument, which however is difficult to apply on the level of one study course, since such aspects of quality management as policy and strategy development, people and resources management are usually conducted on higher structural level than that of one study course. To raise lecturer and program director awareness about the possibilities of improving the quality of their courses should be developed one study course specific quality assurance models and instruments.

In EU have been developed several one study course specific quality assurance models and instruments, among them:

·         for assessing and improving the quality in language courses, in the framework of SOCRATES/LEONARDO project has been developed “A Quality Guide for the Evaluation and Design of Language Learning and Teaching Programs and Materials”(Lasnier a.o., 2003). In the Project participated members of 5 EU countries:  France (J.C. Lasnier); the UK (B.North), Germany (P.Morfield); Italy (C.S.Borneto); Denmark (P.Spath).

·         in Belgium has been developed school Physical education quality evaluation model for Flemish secondary schools (Huts, 2008);

·         in Germany was worked out relational model for evaluating the quality of on-line study courses (Iske/Meder, 2009).

First two models are based on EFQM model; they consist of 3 main parts: the design of the course, the process of its realization and the evaluation of the results of the application of the design. In the third model quality is based on 5 spaces of possibilities or relations between target student group, learning incentives, learning process, learning support and feedback on learning results.

In general first two models more concentrate on teaching, but the third: on learning in enabling learning environment.

Our aim was to work out quality evaluation model for tertiary education study course of professional foreign language, taking as the basis EFQM model for quality management in tertiary education on higher level than one study course, as well as abovementioned instruments for the evaluation of quality in separate study courses.

The objective of the research: develop one tertiary education study course (professional foreign language) specific quality assurance model and instrument.

1.Anderson L.W./Kratwohl D.R. (Eds.) A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of educational objectives: New York: Longman. 2001. 2.Bachman, L. F. (1990). Fundamental considerations in language testing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 3.Bachman, L. F., & Palmer, A. S. (1996). Language testing in practice: Designing and developing useful language tests. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 4.Biggs, J. (1987) Student Approaches to Learning and Studying Hawthorn, Vic: Australian Council for Educational Research. 5.Bloom B.S., Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Cognitive Domain, Longman, 1992. 6.Celce-Murcia, M., Dornyei, Z., & Thurrell,S. (1995). Communicative competence: A pedagogically motivated model with content specifications. Issues in Applied Linguistics 6(2), 5–35. 7.Huts K, Van Hoecke J., Theeboom M, De Knop P., Preliminary analysis of the quality of physical education in Flemish Secondary Schools, EERA: Network Sessions at ECER 2008,http://www.eera-ecer.eu./publication/database/conference/2008/.../educational effectiveness_and_quality_assurance..., 2008, accessed: 10.11.2008. 8.Knoop, H.H./Gardner, H., Good Work in a Complex World. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 2001. 9.Lasnier J.C., Quality, Version 2003, http://www.quiltnetwork.org, 2003, accessed: 5.05.2007. 10.Meder E., Iske S., Quality assurance by RQCC: how quality is attributed to the relation between learner and e-learning environment, Proceedings of EDULEARN09 Conference, Barcelona, Spain, July 6-8, 2009. 11.Profesionālās un augstākās izglītības programmu atbilstība darba tirgus prasībām, Latvijas Universitātes un GfK Baltic Baltkonsults pētījums, Rīga, Latvijas Universitāte, 2007, 231 lpp. 12.Ramsden, P. (1992) Learning to Teach in Higher Education London: Routledge (0-415-06415-5). 13.Rudzinska I., „Evaluating ESP textbooks with the help of quality systems”// International Symposium „Research, education, development”, University of Dimitrie Cantemir, Targu-Mures, Romania, Editura RISOPRINT, Cluj-Napoca, 2010, pp. 435-444. 14.Rudzinska I., „Preliminary Evaluation of Process and Result of ESP courses in Latvian HEIs”, Language and culture: New Challenges for the teachers of Europe, Selected papers, Vilnius universiteto leidykla, 2009, pp. 241-251.