FORMATION OF FUTURE FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE OF NEW GENERATION ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

In connection with the education reform, European standards in teaching foreign languages are being implemented in Ukraine. Comprehensive secondary school is the main educational establishment in the process of teaching and learning foreign languages. In 2012 English became a compulsory school subject in the first form of a primary school in Ukraine. In accordance with this innovation an urgent demand for changes in the field of training pre-service teachers of foreign languages appeared. Thus the aim of the article is to analyze the main conditions of the development of a new generation pre-service primary school foreign language teacher's professional competence. The author analyzes the term “foreign language teacher's professional competence”. It is stated that the development of a pre-service teacher's professional competence appears to be an integral process. Its successful completion demands the reform of the content of education, which will ensure a high level of language acquisition, firm, integrated, and systemic knowledge of the methodology of teaching a foreign language, pedagogy and psychology, the ability to implement theoretical knowledge into practical activity, the ability to use modern technologies of education, including information communicative technologies (ICT), and also pre-service teacher's personality development, aimed at self-education and self-improvement. The research results prove that the development of a new generation pre-service primary school foreign language teacher's professional competence are: updating the content of pedagogical education according to the modern needs of a person and society; moving away from classical theoretical education toward practice, from paradigm “I know” to paradigm “I can do”; setting standards for qualified teachers in methodology and foreign language at the end of year four; training specialists, who have the competence of self-education; using the European experience of developing an electronic professional portfolio as an important mean of student self-control, self-assessment and continuous professional and personal growth.