The analysis of the modern trends in foreign language teaching is given in the paper. The author studies the advantages of the interdisciplinary approach to foreign language teaching at university, considers the difficulties of the pragmatic approach and the inevitability of the union of linguistic and background knowledge for successful translation practice in class and in reallife communication in the targetlanguage country. Being a prerequisite for successful intercultural communication, the need to combine language skills with culturological and enthnolinguistic knowledge is given special attention. Text as the main unit of selection of authentic material for practical exercises in a foregn language should meet the criteria described in the paper as much as possible.