The article is devoted to the problem of diversification of initial professional and practical foreign language teachers’ training in the conditions of transformation of the Russian higher education system. The authors argue that the overall trend of large-scale reforms in higher education is towards diversification, which, on the one hand, provides the multidimensional development of the education system and its components and, on the other hand, ensures flexibility of educational programmes while maintaining a unified professional educational framework. There is a need to introduce variability into the educational process, enhance the content of education programmes, strengthen the interdisciplinary links, versatile personal development of future professionals and ensure their socialisation and enculturation in modern society.

The study attempts to prove the importance of changing the philosophical foundation of methodological thinking among teacher educators and emphasises the need for a transition from communicative and competency-based approaches towards an enculturative approach. The purpose of this research is to provide evidence that initial professional and practical foreign language teachers’ training is manifested not in a set of competencies and communicative skills but in the formation of their own professional culture based on universal values, on the dialogue of cultures and training a future foreign language teacher as a subject of the dialogue of cultures.

The pedagogical experiment on diversification of initial professional and practical foreign language teachers’ training has shown that enculturation of personality while pre-service teacher training is a process of:
1) active acquisition of cultural values, norms and models of human behaviour;
2) assimilation of patterns of professional environment and expansion of professional outlook for successful integration into a specific form of culture, i.e. their future professional group; and
3) mastering not only a foreign language but also the traditions, norms and values of the target language culture using the "language through culture, culture through language" strategy.

The research results showed that enculturation acts as a goal, as a means and as a result of diversification of initial professional and practical foreign language teachers’ training in the system of pedagogical education. Enculturation is essential to form and establish a personality capable of self-adaptation, self-determination, self-organisation, self-realisation and self-actualisation in the future professional life.

Keywords: Diversification, enculturation, professional training, practical training, foreign language teachers, teacher education, second language teaching, foreign language education.