I feel this is because of the education I have received, or rather, not received. Many of my college Spanish classes have been teacher centered. Although we hear Spanish the entire hour, I feel we have little opportunity to work on our speaking skills. I don't feel this has prepared me enough to teach in the target language. I think it is the teacher's responsibility to expose the students to the foreign language as much as possible from the very beginning, but I wonder how many first year teachers are really prepared for this.
Communicative competence covers a broad range of elements.
I think the university should better prepare foreign language teachers by including more speaking classes. So, yes, I think foreign language teachers have a responsibility to be communicatively competent, but many fall short of this. Dear netforum members, I am responding to all of you who responded to the topic on becoming communicatively competent in the language one is teaching. This is a very challenging matter, due to the fact that you have all expressed that you do not feel ready to speak in the target language all the time in class, as you would be expected to do when you start teaching. You have also expressed, the many years that you have learned the language, and that fact does not make you competent in the oral communication, nor the trips you have taken abroad.