The article is focused on scientific and methodological problems of the development of a new element of the Russian state testing system - linguodidactic description of general language proficiency (Elementary level, Russian as a foreign language). The particular attention is given to the presentation of the communicative competence elements relevant for foreigners at the given level of language proficiency. This article describes the amount of linguistic, sociolinguistic, sociocultural and country-specific competences that are required and sufficient for the communication at the Elementary level of general language proficiency. The Elementary level linguodidactic description is based on the hypothetical model of speech behavior of a foreigner. It is a systematic description of the multicomponent goals of communicative-oriented teaching of Russian as a foreign language. It reflects the communicative competence development degree, that allows to solve pragmatic tasks in a very limited range of situations and topics of communication with a limited set of language tools. Linguodidactic description includes the general representation of communicative objectives; a description of the content of learning; a general description of the strategies and tactics of communication; representation of the content of socio-cultural and pragmatic competences. Presenting communicative goals and objectives of training, it primarily refers to the description of the areas of communication, topics and situations of communication. Thus, the main areas of communication of foreign students at the Elementary level are sociocultural.
