The Development of Multiple Skills for the Foreign Language Teacher of the XXIst Century – Current Training Needs

AbstractIf speaking today about the skills in the foreign languages field is an absolutely logical approach and without a need of additional justifications, the matter of their classification from the teaching and/or psychological point of view certainly remains open. The teacher's proficiency profile and the occupational standards which define the teaching career are in the centre of European debates on education topics in the last years, a significant attention being paid to all the challenges that decision makers face all the time: the elaboration of some attractive and incentivising initial training patterns adjusted to the current requirements, awareness of the teacher's role as co- ordinator and active factor of the educational process, identification of the best measures to facilitate the access into the profession, establishment of a set of skills which should properly meet the education quality criteria, increase of the conceptual coherence between the initial and the in-service training and, last but not least, the creation of some fair work conditions (financially and not only). The foreign language teaching profession is currently faced with increasing enrolments and a shortage of qualified teachers. At the same time, a rapidly changing student population, nationwide education reform and the development of national standards for foreign language learning are placing a number of new demands on foreign language teachers. Curtain and Pesola [1] suggest that foreign language teachers today “require a combination of competencies and background that may be unprecedented in the preparation of language teachers” and that strong professional development is critical. The present paperwork intends to briefly examine the competency profile of the modern language teacher of the XXIst century in Europe, with emphasis on his general needs of initial and in-service training, which are responsible for the shaping of a creative space for the study of foreign languages and of a “rejuvenated” portrait of the nowadays’ linguistic educator