The concept of a teacher competence in the works of national and foreign scholars has been investigated in the article. The author describes the standards for English teachers in Belgium that is considered to be an inalienable element of the European education. The qualified training of the teachers is denoted as pedagogical, didactic and methodical knowledge mastering and obtaining research and practical skills. In Belgium vocational education in general and teacher training in particular are described as training of an educational specialist with vocational, organizational, communicative skills and high level of the competence.