The urgency of this topic is based on the fact that competency approach in education becomes a priority way of development of educational programs in Russian universities, especially in the light of the growing integration into the international educational space. The purpose of this article is to realize competency approach in relation to educators teaching foreign students in Russian universities by means of formulation of key competencies, which would increase the quality and efficiency of educational process. To achieve this goal in the article several tasks are solved. 1) analysis of the essence of the notion ''competency'' and its relation to the notion ''competence''. In the context of this task content elements of competency were pointed out, a scheme reflecting the process of its development was presented. Further it was shown that despite the harmony with the term ''competence'', competency is only its component. Competence is a set of competencies, which is confirmed by the ''successful'' life experience of their application. 2) formulation and development of key competencies of educator teaching foreign students in the English language in a Russian university. Within this task a five-year experience of teaching professional subjects to foreign students in the English language in Tomsk Polytechnic University was taken into account. The following list of competencies was formulated: communicative competency (the focus is on the development of speaking and comprehension skills due to the fact that for most foreign students English is not their native language. It is also suggested that the educator take into account three useful principles: ''standby'', ''KISS'' and ''Feedback''); sociocultural competency, (the focus is understanding and consideration of national psychological peculiarities of foreign students); information competency as contemporary ''new literacy'' (the ability of an educator to sustain effective communication with students by means of Internet and personal educator's website); professional competency (development of broad ''professional horizon'' and ability to adopt elements of ''need-soriented education''). As a tool of implementation of the latter it is suggested to use the module approach in education. Also it is pointed out that while working with foreign students, one needs to actively involve the element of self-study, because this skill is relatively more developed.
