Readiness Assessment for Interlingual and Intercultural Interaction in Pre-Service English Teachers

University education prepares pre-service teachers for interlingual and intercultural interaction; however, the methods used to determine their level of readiness remain understudied. Speech culture is an integral part of foreign language acquisition. Furthermore, foreign language teachers must master the norms of their own speech culture to serve as role models for students, who rely on them to shape their own speech identity. Pre-service teachers require targeted development of interlingual and intercultural interaction skills even in their native language, as these skills are not innate. Alongside relevant theoretical knowledge, they need skills related to bilingual flexibility, speech adaptation, and self improvement. These competencies allow them to develop a bilingual culture manifested as a tolerant and conscious attitude toward both foreign and native languages and cultures. Their readiness to engage in such communication should be assessed as early in the academic process as possible. Such assessment techniques comprise self assessment tests, questionnaires, and situational tasks with open ended and closed ended responses. This paper provides examples of these techniques, which feature progressively unfolding communicative and speech situations alongside the respondent’s behavioral strategy. The methods are accompanied by evaluation criteria for the co realization of native and foreign languages and speech cultures. Only a high level of performance across all criteria guarantees high-quality bilingual and bicultural interaction.