The article substantiates necessity of including linguistic and country study content while developing communicative competence of students; demonstrates a scheme of applying the communicative approach to developing linguocultural competence of students as a system of country-through-language knowledge, skills and motives that enable effective communication in the process of cross-cultural intercourse. The model of developing such competence is based on the principles of authenticity of linguocultural material, philological way of cognition, polychannel perception of information; and encompasses motivating (psychological), orientating (factual) and communicative (subject-oriented, pseudo-communucative, creative) stages. Keywords: communicative competence, cross-cultural communication, country-though-language studies, linguocultural competence, future foreign language teachers, philological training.