Assessment of a Language Teacher’s Professional Competence

Abstract

The intent of the article is to study approaches that could be used to assess a language teacher’s professional competence. The authors state that authorities often do not distinguish the concepts “competence” and “competency”, and there is no one unique approach for assessing teachers’ work. We showed that the problem could be investigated within the frames of a competency-based approach. The term competency is wider than competence, and it embraces not only the sub-competencies, such as micro and macro skills, but personal qualities, which should also become the object of assessment. The following competencies of a teacher’s competency were distinguished: professional, social, personal, and pedagogical. For designing assessment standards, we dwelt on a teaching skills competence, which is a complex combination of the following abilities: the ability to formulate and realize lesson goals; motivate students; plan a lesson; conduct a lesson; control and evaluate students’ achievements. Five standards for assessing teachers’ professional competence were proposed. Each standard includes an indicator, which gives competence characteristics, and a grading scale. A survey was conducted among the teachers of secondary schools. Its purpose was to get teachers’ opinion on the content of the standards. We found out that the issues concerning sets of exercises, active learning techniques, critical thinking need more detailed explanation. The following conclusion was drawn. The problem of assessment of teachers’ competency is urgent nowadays; and teachers do really need the assessment professional development guide. With the purpose of measuring the effectiveness of the designed standards, the experiment is planned.