Research Information System
8th CONTEMPORARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH CONGRES Education, Science, Art and Society in the 21th Century: Innovative Approaches and Competencies, Krakow, Poland, 8 - 10 July 2024, pp.46-53
ABSTRACT
What makes a good foreign language teaching? Perfect language skills or extensive subject knowledge of
the teacher would not be sufficient for an effective learning process. In contrast to earlier views of
pedagogy and language didactics, the teacher is no longer directly linked to knowledge transfer, but
possesses some properties that can lead to good foreign language teaching. This refers to a range of
pedagogical teaching competencies. If teachers and their training are considered important for good foreign
language teaching, then foreign language didactics should delve into the following questions in more detail:
"How can qualified language teachers be trained, further trained, and developed?", "What teaching
competencies are expected for successful foreign language teaching?", and "How can candidate language
teachers acquire these teaching competencies?" As mentioned earlier, the training and professional
development of foreign language teachers constitutes a major component of the field of foreign language
didactics with its theoretical and practice-oriented dimension. Through training as foreign language
teachers, there will be a development of teaching competencies across multiple dimensions, contributing to
the professionalization of foreign language instruction. The aim of the presentation is therefore to discuss
the current topic of foreign language teacher education and provide some food for thought. First, the
principles for modern foreign language teaching will be briefly outlined. Following this, on one hand,
teacher competencies arising from the current practical field will be presented, and on the other hand,
educational content for a career-oriented and scientifically based university foreign language teacher
training. The following points will be briefly touched upon:
- The communicative turn in foreign language teaching and the political turn in European foreign language
didactics,
- Discussions and problems in the context of foreign language didactics,
- Reforms, restructuring, and recommendations regarding foreign language teacher education,
- Professional orientation, competence orientation, quality orientation, orientation towards educational
standards, and teacher professionalization in the field of foreign language teacher training.
Furthermore, the presentation addresses how teaching competencies can be developed. In this regard,
European initiatives to improve teaching competency are briefly introduced: The European Portfolio for
Student Teachers of Languages (EPOSTL) and The European Profiling Grid (EPG).
Keywords, -concepts: Foreign language didactics Foreign language teacher education, Teaching
competencies, The European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages, The European Profiling Grid.