Content Introduction Chapter The Role of Translation and Mother Tongue in flt

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the FLC and, among others, he also warns against
frequent alternations between L1 and L2. A similar term is used by Scrivener (2011, p. 63) who talks of creating an "English" atmosphere in the classroom. A teacher should use L2 from the very first contact with learners and resort to L1 to ensure comprehension only.
On the other hand, this may be demanding for those teachers who prefer to rely rather on L1 on their teaching as it makes high demands on their foreign language proficiency. General educational trends of teaching and learning in the Czech Republic, and thus also those of foreign language teaching (henceforth "FLT"), are drawn up inthe National Education Programme and Framework Education Programmes (henceforth "FEP") on the state level and School Education Programmes on the school level. FEPs define the scope of education for preschool, elementary and secondary education.
On the basis of the Framework Education Programme schools create their School Education Programmes reflecting the needs and experience of the individual schools (Framework Education Programme for Elementary Education, 2007, p. 5). The cornerstone of the Czech schooling represents the forming and developing Key Competencies, defined as "a set of knowledge, skills, abilities, attitudes and values which
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are important for the personal development of an individual and for the individual’s participation in society" (ibid., p. 11). FEP for Basic Education states six key competencies to be developed within the primary and lower secondary school education: learning competency, problem-solving competency, communication competency, social and personal competency, civic competency, professional competency. It goes without saying that the aim of the language teaching should not be restricted to teaching language skills only.
Speaking foreign languages opens the door for learners to live and work abroad and to broaden their horizons by speaking with people of other nationalities and cultures and make independent opinions of their own, which is crucial in today's world.
FLT should therefore aim at a complex development of learners by taking all these six areas of competencies into account and helping learners find their way in their lives. Numerous language teaching methods, some of them more successful that others, have been developed over a time to promote second language acquisition. But still, in the context of a foreign language perception, language as a communication tool tends to enjoy a privileged position in FLT and as such, the development of the communication
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competence, in other words "a learner's ability to use language to communicate successfully" (British Council, n.d.), is the key task of language teachers. Communicative Langue Teaching is dominant among language teaching methods and its use in FLT is recommended by the Council of Europe (Choděra, 2006, p. 95).
1.1.Communicative Language Teaching as the Current Trend in FLT.Although most of the methods and approaches listed above claim to be more or less "communicative", only some reflect the key objective of today's FLT, which is the ability to communicate in real-life situations.
Cook (2010, p. 135) distinguishes between traditional and communicative focus of FLT and puts them in contrast, although he adds that these terms are not unambiguous since the "traditional" teaching may involve communicative elements and, conversely, some communicative activities may not be communicative at all. The main features pertaining to each of the FLT approaches can be according to Cook distinguished as follows: