The article is devoted to the description of the work of teachers of the Russian Language Department of MGIMO on the development of professional competence of foreign students. The authors describe some methods of active learning such as business games and student conferences. Business games allows teachers to solve the following tasks: activation of the studied lexical and grammatical material, the development of new vocabulary, syntactic constructions, norms of communicative behavior; training in the construction of monological speech and dialogue; motivation of students to increase their linguistic and cultural knowledge. Participation in student conferences helps to strengthen motivation for a more in-depth study of the Russian language, increase the level of education of students, proves the need for independent work. The article analyzes the experience of holding business games, conferences and the UN Model in MGIMO.