Learning a foreign language is becoming an increasingly important with Russia's integration into the world community. In this regard, increased requirements for the educational process and the development of new innovative teaching methods meet the requirements of the time. One of the important aspects of learning a foreign language is listening as a kind of verbal activity. The study showed the importance of the problem of improving the mechanisms for listening in non-language faculties of the university. The article describes the relevant aspects of the difficulties of the process of listening, the essence and the main characteristics of this type of educational process and the criteria for high-quality listening in a non-language high school. The study describes a system of training of listening within the most effective exercises; learning of listening as speech culture; methodology of teaching a foreign language, which is subject to the general requirements of higher education, where listening becomes a part of developing the system of education. The results of the experimental work show the effectiveness of formation of the basic skills of listening as a speech and language in general, the successful development of students of non-language specialties of high school.