This evaluation study on tandem learning among future teachers of Russian in school-based
internships aims at examining the development of teacher language competences for institutional
Russian teaching. The focus is on development of competencies of L2- teachers in student teacher
internships. The article deals with the tandem-method as one of the ways of training teacher language
for educational purposes in the classroom. Teacher language always has didactic implications. The
teacher serves as an educational role model in his foreign verbal actions, but the level of command
of the language for using it professionally as teacher language in university internships is very
heterogeneous. The reasons are manifold and related to worldwide migration and the efforts of
reforming the educational system in Europe. That is why the subject of interest for this research is
the development of teacher language as a part of linguistic competence. The individual perception of
future Russian teachers of the functional logic and quality of tandem language learning and support
is examined on the basis of learning diaries and interviews. The paper concludes with discussion
and results of providing external support – firstly, the autonomous learner, secondly, the partnerorientated
learner and thirdly, the learner who is determined by others. Depending on this typology,
the qualitative research shows that tandem work has a future role in the context of teacher training
and migration.