Globalization of the world, development of the multicultural society, wide contacts between students as future specialists and representatives of different countries and cultures influence the system of foreign language teacher education. Professional competences which are formed now in the process of pedagogical education do not fully correspond to the demands of multicultural world. Our research question is: what professional competences of a foreign language teacher are required in a new globalized and multicultural world and what new pedagogical programs and approaches should be created for their development? Objective of the research: to create a new competence-based approach in the system of a foreign language teacher education. Theoretical and conceptual framework lies in the sphere of three scientific branches: 1) theory of teaching foreign languages; 2) studies in the field of intercultural communication; 3) studies in the field of cognitive linguistics. The main achievements in the theory of teaching foreign languages of present-day science are connected with the idea of coherent process of language and culture acquisition. But the fact is that all these theories touch upon only one language and one culture the language of which is to be taught. For the multicultural world it is not enough. The studies in the field of intercultural communication are very important for our research from the point of view of understanding differences and similarities between representatives of different cultures. Investigations of universal, ethno-cultural, socio-cultural and individual-cultural concepts and values form a basis for productive intercultural interaction. One more aspect of intercultural communication deals with the communication in the Internet. We are sure that this virtual world is really multicultural and it should be widely investigated and included into our future system of foreign language teacher training. The studies of the Internet language and communicative technologies were in the sphere of our attention ( D.Crystal, 2001; J.Krajka, 2000; S. Bocher, 1972; Fischer, G.,1998). As for the cognitive linguistics it should be pointed out that studies in this science are important for us so that to investigate the technology of penetrating into the conceptual sphere of native speakers (analyzing dictionaries, texts and discourses from the Internet) for the purpose of their better understanding. We haven’t found these very important achievements of cognitive linguistics in the system of teacher education. Having analyzed all these factors we have come to the conclusion that it is necessary to create a new approach to the foreign language teacher education. We call it polycultural approach. We suggest that the main professional competence should be polycultural and its structure could be the following: 1) polylinguistic competence (knowing of several foreign languages and how to teach them); 2) polyconceptual competence (having the skills to fulfill a conceptual analysis and knowing how to teach this analysis); 3) technological – communicative competence (knowing different communicative programs in the Internet and having skills to use them and to teach them). Inside these groups of competences particular system of knowledge and skills were worked out, then special topics and themes were chosen, special exercises suggested.

General methodology is based on the idea of interaction of cultures in multicultural society and the necessity of acquisition of not only a language system, but also a conceptual system in the process of language teacher education so that future teachers should know how to use these techniques in their classroom activities for the purpose of preparing their students to the positive interaction and peaceful life in multicultural world. The following methods were used in our research: 1) student interviewing before and after experimental teaching; 2) direct observation during experimental teaching; 3) experimental teaching; 4) data analysis. In order to evaluate the development of polycultural competence the experimental teaching was held. There were organized two groups of students at the department of foreign languages in Kemerovo state university: the control group - the classes in which were given in regular way (154 students), and the experimental group (100 students).

The results will be evaluated on the bases of the final essays-investigations. In order to evaluate such type of the competence as polyconceptual, the following skills will be analyzed: the skills to analyse lexical presentation of concepts, the skills to analyse contextual presentation of concepts; the skill to define the universal cultural concepts, typical for the cultures in contact; the skill to define specific ethno-cultural content of the universal concepts. In order to evaluate the polylinguistic competence such skills will be taken into account as: the skill to define cultural characteristics of the communication partner and transfer his own culture with the help of the English language as an international one; the skill to underline cultural features of the communication partner on the bases of his native language. Communicational-technological competence will be evaluated according to the capability to fulfill individual Investigation of the communicative Internet resourses; to use the Internet resources for the purpose of searching for necessary information and creating interaction with representatives of different cultures. Three levels of the development are defined: high, medium, low. The inermediate investigation showed the preliminary data: students of the experimental group demonstrate only high and medium level of polycultural competence development.