@article {1166,
	title = {RUSSIAN LANGUAGE NEEDS AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN MALAYSIA},
	journal = {Problems of Education in the 21st Century},
	volume = {76},
	year = {2018},
	month = {October/2018},
	pages = {Continuous},
	type = {Original article},
	chapter = {693-705},
	abstract = {In the context of higher education foreign language courses are viewed as skills-oriented subjects that aim to enable students to communicate in a foreign language. The main four language skills to be developed are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Until recently, decisions about which of the linguistic skills should be emphasized in a foreign language program have been taken without seeking the opinions of language learners. To address this issue, the present research examined needs for learning the Russian language among students in a Malaysian public university. To achieve this research aim, a survey questionnaire was distributed among prospective learners of Russian. Four different statistical methods were performed to analyse the data, namely, the descriptive statistics, the independent t-test, the exploratory factor analysis and the reliability test. The findings from the descriptive statistics revealed that the respondents considered developing face-to-face interactive skills, such as the speaking and listening skills, as most important. The findings of the t-test suggested that demographic variables might have some influence on the students{\textquoteright} perceptions of the skills{\textquoteright} importance. For example, the students who spoke Malay at home placed a higher value on developing their ability to speak in a polite manner and to understand non-verbal communitive acts, such as gestures. The results of the exploratory factor analysis revealed that the language skills as perceived by the students formed several dimensions where interactive and non-interactive skills tended to form distinct clusters. This research concludes with a discussion of pedagogical implications to be drawn from the findings. },
	keywords = {higher education, language needs, Malaysia, Russian language},
	issn = {1822-7864},
	doi = {https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/18.76.693},
	url = {http://oaji.net/articles/2017/457-1540320341.pdf},
	author = {Larisa Nikitina and Ma Tin Cho Mar and Fumitaka Furuoka}
}
