Professional competence of foreign language teachers in institutions of higher education

Abstract

The article highlights the problem of professional competence of a foreign language teacher in higher education institutions, analyses its structural elements, defines the essence of the concepts "competence" and "competency". It is noted that scientists interpret and classify it differently, however, all of them believe that the acquisition of certain competencies allows foreign language teachers in higher education institutions to meet modern requirements of today, and to carry out sufficient educational process. We consider the professional competence of a foreign language teacher as his psychological, theoretical and practical training combined with the ability to successfully perform pedagogical activities in the process of teaching foreign languages. The authors proved that it is the result of acquired social experience (knowledge, skills, moral values) and includes a number of personal qualities. Some groups of special professional competencies (didactic, psychological, methodical), linguistic (philological), communicative, informational, sociocultural, project, reflective are singled out, substantiated and characterised in the paper. It is defined that the presence of a set of these competencies ensures the effectiveness of the professional activity of a foreign language teacher and meets the needs of today. A detailed analysis of the scientific literature related to the researched problem is carried out. The importance of the issues raised in the article is pointed out, their novelty and relevance in the light of reforming pedagogical education, its standardization on the basis of the competence approach are proved. Emphasis is placed on the role of foreign language teachers as a key figure in the formation of professional competence of students.