Keyword: «students of a technical university»

Based on the analysis of scientific educational sources and own experience of foreign language teaching at a technical university, the author tries to represent the specific features that characterize the formation of undergraduate students’ universal competences in the process of foreign language learning. The universal competences of the new generation educational standards that have replaced the so-called general cultural competences are regarded as the foundation of students’ further individual, social and professional development that determines their potential success in the future. The article examines such issues as the composition of components of the universal competences, content interconnections among them; it also describes and provides real-life practical examples of a substantial potential of a foreign language as a curriculum subject that provides for their effective development.