The shift from the knowledge -based to the competence -based educational model became one of the urgent issues in educational systems worldwide. As the intercultural communicative competence (ICC) is considered as one of the main goals in foreign language acquisition, the learning process should also embody intercultural learning. Therefore it is important for the teacher to track his\her students' progress in becoming interculturally competent: how effective and appropriate they can communicate. The aim of this paper is to present a brief overview of research on diagnostics and assessment of intercultural communicative competence.

This article considers methods for developing metalanguage competence through content and branch training. Metalanguage competence is among the most important professional competences for the specialist’s formation in the sphere of foreign-language education within the framework of content and branch training. Metalanguage competence implies the accumulation of terminological knowledge and the ability to properly use foreign terms. For content and branch training, it is very important to have metalanguage competence since any sphere and field are characterized by their own specific terminology, which can be understood in a foreign language by learning the metalanguage of an industry through primary consciousness constructs in one’s native language. As a result, one can operate a specialized terminology in a foreign language. In the framework of foreign-language education, specialists in natural sciences should master a specific terminology for intercultural communication at a professional level since terms reflect main provisions in any field of knowledge and contain basic professional information. This article describes the experiment and its results achieved in the work with students at the Kazakh Ablai Khan University of International Relations and World Languages in order to determine the current development of metalanguage competence in content and branch training.