Foreign Language Competences of Educators and Areas of Their Application

Abstract

The present article provides an overview of key areas of educators’ language skills with an emphasis on foreign-language competence. Foreign language competences of educators at all levels of schooling constitute an integral part of the contemporary pedagogical activity, being historically embedded in both Czech and foreign linguistic and language teaching cultures. The latter competences form a subset of general and ´soft´ skills in the area of communication and apowerful tool of knowledge acquisition, enabling access to foreign language resources in libraries, databases and the whole of the internet platform, as well as communication in interactive social settings of conferences and other professional contexts. The article primarily focuses on foreign language competences of non-language teachers as a part of their professional erudition and on the areas of application of both productive and receptive skills, including speaking, writing, listening, reading and translation. The convergence of language teaching and content subjects resulted in the emergence of new didactic approaches that further underscore the importance and potential of foreign language competence in the professional activity of teachers.