Pre-service foreign language and culture teachers’ project competence within the contemporary educational paradigm

Abstract

The article substantiates the relevance of research studies devoted to the issue of building pre-service foreign language and culture teachers’ project competence as an integral part of their professional methodological competency. The main factors that determine the necessity of immediate solving of the outlined scientific problem within the contemporary educational paradigm are considered. These factors are as follows: 1) the existing in Ukraine social demand for well-qualified project-based teachers who will be ready and able to provide methodologically correct foreign language project-based learning of their students; 2) the lack of purposeful and systematic methodological preparation of pre-service foreign language and culture teachers for providing project-based learning in Ukrainian schools; 3) the lack of profound scientific studies in the field of teaching methods of foreign languages and cultures that would thoroughly investigate theory and practice of building pre-service teachers’ project competence as an important component of their professional methodological competency. The project competence of a pre-service foreign language and culture teacher is defined as his/her integrative professional methodological personal quality based on readiness and ability to implement project-based foreign language and culture learning in general secondary education schools, namely: to plan, forecast, organise, implement, coordinate, and analyse the process and the outcomes of students’ project-based foreign language learning. The latest changes in the Ukrainian national educational paradigm are intended to contribute to the development of the project-based education system as a cross-cutting preparation of students for innovative, problem-based, project-based, and research-based activities in order to teach them to solve their personal, professional, and social problems, to organise their self-determination and self-education throughout their lives. A modern project-based teacher should be able to develop students’ project competence – their readiness and ability, on the assumption of motivation, to organise their project work to solve educational problem tasks.