The article addresses one of the urgent tasks of the cycle of humanities disciplines in a technical university - the development of communicative competence. The socio-economic reforms of Russia put forward new requirements to the level and quality of training of a modern specialist. Rhetorical skills are one of the necessary elements of activity not only for a teacher, lawyer, politician, but also for an engineer, economist, production manager. Ignoring this truth in our country has led to the fact that the culture of speech communication and eloquence have been forgotten for a long time. The task of the educational system today is to revive the lost traditions in the field of business rhetoric and the art of public speaking. The author in the article describes the experience of teaching courses at Ufa State Aviation Technical University dedicated to the development of students' communicative skills.
