The purpose of the article is to introduce the course structure and contents, determine its status in the context of the psychological and linguocommunicative perspectives of teaching Russian as a foreign language. The study combines theoretical and practical types of analysis. The paper integrates the academic data and explores scientific provisions on the role of the introductory phonetic and grammatical course within the Russian university based training of international students. The

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... s pedagogical experience in teaching Russian as a foreign language to students who come to study at Moscow-based Peoples' Friendship University of Russia , are also taken into account. The results of the analysis confirm the need to place and introductory phonetic and grammar course into a special stage of education from the point of view of psychology and language didactics. The results of the study have also made it possible to define the components of the student's competencies formed at the stage of this course, characterize the volume, content, aspects of training, the possibility of their individualization within the framework of this course. The obtained data are of obvious applied relevance for the development of personally significant trajectories of international students' who study at Russian universities. The results can also be used for theoretical studies of conceptual approaches to defining the stages of teaching a language as a foreign language, the content and specifics of these stages.