The article examines the issues of the systemic use of discursive practice in the process of teaching languages ​​in higher education. The understanding of the key terms discourse, discursive practices, rhetorical competence is interpreted. A specially developed program for the development of rhetorical competence of philology students within the framework of the compulsory academic discipline "Russian language", where the main didactic unit is discursive practices, is described. This program is designed for 1st year students of level C1 and includes sections related to the development of the levels of rhetorical competence of students. The structure of rhetorical competence (verbal-cognitive, motivational-value and reflexive-activity levels), as well as levels of its development (low, medium, high), criteria for assessing its development are described. The scores of the control cut are given for one of the six topics presented in comparison with the scores received by students at the start of the specified program.