The article is centred around the concept of "language competence of a foreign language (FL) teacher" and the ways it can be evaluated. Though the definition of teacher language competence might sound obvious it has not yet been clearly structured and, therefore, no component has been thoroughly described. I use this fact as a starting point and analyse various sources, from academic articles to examination reports to present my view of language teacher language competence with emphasis laid on both in- and out-of-classroom communication. I come out with a list of topics a FL teacher might deal with together with communicative skills and language awareness they require to function successfully and which, therefore, should be subject to evaluation. To conclude, I present a tentative definition of a FL teacher language competence and analyse issues likely to arise in its assessment. These could develop into more detailed standards for teachers' initial training as well as clearer definition of teacher competence evaluation frameworks at teacher training colleges and universities. (Contains 2 tables, 2 figures and 8 footnotes.)