Cultural competence as keystone of training teachers of foreign languages

ENGlobalization processes and their determining factors raise new challenges for training teachers of foreign languages. A teacher is expected to both cherish own culture and transmit the culture of the taught foreign language; therefore, while training a specialist of a foreign language it is essential to develop his/her cultural competence. The current article deals with the expression of cultural competence of pre-service teachers of foreign languages. It emphasizes the effects of globalization on the training of foreign language teachers as well as highlights the necessity of raising their cultural competence. With this aim, a quantitative study was conducted in spring 2013. The questionnaire consisted of several sections, which aimed at identifying the current level of the cultural competence of pre-service teachers of foreign languages, namely their knowledge about culture in general and countryspecific culture facts, emotions evoked by different cultural events, abilities and experience of functioning in different cultural environments, as well as other factors determining their cultural competence. Keywords: pre-service teacher of a foreign language, culture, cultural competence, foreign language, globalization. [From the publication]