Foreign language competence is one of the general skills necessary for the European knowledge society. It is an essential criterion for personality maturity subservient to mutual understanding, democratic stability, communication with the world, and employability. The European Council devotes a lot of attention to the language policy, emphasises the value of language diversity and the importance of possibilities for everybody to learn several languages.

 Learning of foreign languages is perceived as a part of life-long learning. Therefore, higher education institutions should, on the basis of what has been achieved in secondary education in the field of language teaching and learning, aim at further development of foreign language competence. As the document of European Commission states (2002) language competence is a part of general competences that ensure every person’s employability, education, and personal development possibilities. These competences have to be constantly refreshed and developed. The days when learning started and ended in secondary school have presently become history – today language learning has become an activity of life-long learning.

Lithuanian education and foreign language policy at various levels of education, and particularly at the level of higher education, quite rarely meets the recommendations of the European Union foreign language policy. A number of studies have demonstrated the importance of the foreign language competence for employability in the world of competitiveness. Higher education graduates, future participants of the world of work, integrate into the global labour market that unavoidably requires the competence of two or three foreign languages. However, the entrants into higher education very often fail to correspond to the level of general education foreign language competence. Therefore, higher education institutions should create the necessary conditions to improve students' foreign language competence. However, the curricula for the foreign language competence development in higher education institutions are often inconsistent and lead to the lack of graduate linguistic readiness to accept the challenges of the world of work. Therefore, it can be assumed that there is a contradiction between the requirements of the world of work for the foreign language competence and the actual foreign language competence acquired by the graduates from a higher education institution.

Thus, the paper is aimed at presenting the description of the existing problem in the field, presenting the theoretical background for the research, the analysis of the research data and the discussion based on the results of the research data analysis.

The purpose of the empirical study was to substantiate the need for the innovations in the foreign language competence development curriculum in a higher education institution from the point of view of the higher education graduates and their experience in the world of work as concerns their foreign language competence acquired at a higher education institution. For this purpose the following objectives were set: (1) to find out how higher education graduates view their qualification as concerns their foreign language competence; (2) how adequate is their preparation to function effectively in the world of work from their point of view; and (3) how they evaluate their foreign language competence in comparison to its importance in their work. 

1. Borg, W. R. & Gall, M. D. (1989). Educational Research. New York & London: Longman. 2. Brace, N, Kemp, R., Shelgar, R. (2007). SPSS for Psychologists: a Guide to Data Analysis Using SPSS for Windows. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 3. Bryman, A. (2008). Social Research Methods. Oxford University Press. 4. Canale, M., Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics. 5. Glasersfeld, E. (1989). Cognition, Construction of Knowledge, and Teaching. Synthese, 80(1). 6. Griffiths R. (2004). Knowledge Production and the Research-Teaching Nexus: the Case of the Built Environment Disciplines. Studies in Higher Education 29. 7. Hymes, D., Savignon, S. (1997). Communicative Competence: Theory and Classroom Practice, Second Edition. New York, NY: McGrawHill. 8. Hymes, D.H. (1971). Competence and Performance in Linguistic Theory. Language Acquisition: Models and Methods. 9. Longworth, N. (2007). Mokymosi visą gyvenimą praktika: švietimo kaita XXI amţiuje. Vilnius: Kronta. 10. Mackiewicz, W. (2009). Better taught in English? Institutional language strategies in European higher education. 23rd ACA European Policy Seminar. Brussels. 11. Phillips, J., Tan, Ch. Competence. (The Literary Encyclopedia ). 12. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR)). (2008). Vilnius 13. Commission of the European Communities. (2005). A New Framework Strategy for Multilingualism. 14. Focus on Higher Education in Europe 2010: The Impact of the Bologna Process. (2010). Languages. Council of Europe, 2001. 15. LR Švietimo įstatymas (2003). Vilnius: LR Švietimo ir mokslo ministerija. 16. Nancy Declaration. (2006). Multilingual Universities for a Multilingual Europe Open to the World. European Language Council. European Network for the Promotion of Language Learning Among All Undergraduates. 17. Užsienio kalbų mokymo strategija (Projektas). (2009). Lietuvos Respublikos švietimo ir mokslo ministerija. 18. Valstybinės švietimo strategijos 2003-2012 metų nuostatos (2003). Vilnius: LR Seimas.