The article deals with the role of preparatory faculties in pre-university training of foreign citizens. The necessity of formation of professional and language competence of foreign students is substantiated, the features of such formation in accordance with the levels are considered, the assessment means of formation of the competence at each level are described, thespecific examples of tasks for each level are given in the article.

The article deals with the essence of the professional linguistic competence of a foreign specialist and the use of specially adapted reference book as the condition of development of this competence. The features and principles of the reference structure are considered in the article.

There is considered the formation of the professional language competence of a foreign student as the way of improvement of teaching foreign students at Russian higher schools. There is given the definition and the levels of development of this phenomenon, described the system of principles that teachers should follow in the process of foreign students training.

There is given the scientific comprehension of professional and language competence of a foreign student, sorted out the levels of its formation. For each level there are defined the inner factors and external conditions for the establishment of the phenomenon, revealed the invariant factors and conditions, that makes it possible to elaborate the requirements of the organization of the process of professional and language competence formation in the process of pre-higher school training.