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. Well, April, I'm glad to hear you say that. I feel way behind the Spanish majors. I haven't studied abroad, nor have I taken the literature and culture classes that Foreign Language majors have.