Professional skills of Foreign Language Teachers. An analysis in Secondary Education

Abstract

The present paper focuses on the foreign language teacher, as the main teaching agent in the education process. Particularly, we address contents related to the teaching profession, the linguistic and education policies, and the foreign language teachers’ professional profile and skills. All this information is the conceptual basis for the study performed in the second part of this paper, consisting of an analysis of the professional skills of foreign language teachers, who perform their teaching practice in Secondary Education in a specific school centre. Such study is appropriately characterised and, by being inscribed in the qualitative paradigm, presents the results in a descriptive and interpretive way. Lastly, those hypotheses that are confirmed or rejected are presented in the conclusions, where the initial research questions are also answered.

El presente Trabajo se centra en el docente de lenguas extranjeras, como principal agente didáctico en el proceso de enseñanza. En particular, se abordan contenidos relativos a la profesión docente, a las políticas educativas y lingüísticas, al perfil profesional de los docentes de lenguas extranjeras y a sus propias competencias. Todo ello supone la base conceptual para el estudio que se presenta en la segunda parte del Trabajo, consistente en un análisis de las competencias profesionales de profesorado de lenguas extranjeras que desempeña su actividad en la etapa de Educación Secundaria de un contexto escolar específico. Dicho estudio se caracteriza debidamente y, al estar inscrito en el paradigma de investigación cualitativa, presenta los resultados de manera descriptiva e interpretativa. Finalmente, se presentan en las conclusiones aquellas hipótesis que se confirman o se rechazan, respondiendo igualmente a los interrogantes de partida.