The paper outlines the development of the concept of awareness across various academic disciplines and examines terminological problems involved in analysing human cognition. Approaches to awareness in philosophy, developmental psychology, neuroscience and linguistics are discussed, as well as the career of the concept in Second Language Acquisition and Foreign Language Teaching (SLA / FLT). Learners’ and teachers’ language awareness is presented as a basis for the enrichment of the awareness concept by a number of psychological, sociological and pedagogical factors. Special attention is given to neglected aspects of teacher awareness, such as awareness of learners’ thinking processes and teachers’ awareness of classroom decision-making. Implications are sought for pre-service teacher education.