The interest in learning Ukrainian is constantly growing. Today, we can identify three audiences that learn the language: Ukrainians, the diaspora and foreigners. Accordingly, approaches to teaching it should be different. Therefore, the article defines the concepts of Ukrainian as a native language, Ukrainian as a heritage language, and Ukrainian as a foreign language. Attention is focused on the content of the concept of native speaker and its characteristics. Basic principles and tasks of a modern lesson in Ukrainian as a native language are characterized. These include the development of skills to work with information, create and analyze texts, and express one's own opinion. The lesson also performs an educational function, ensures the mastery of moral, ethical and psychological principles of communication and cooperation, etc. Traditional and non-traditional methods of language teaching are covered. For teachers of Ukrainian as a heritage language, the target audience is bilinguals who usually have good oral language skills formed under the influence of communication at home or in the community, but reading and writing skills are not sufficiently developed. Therefore, teachers should focus on the development of reading skills, including understanding the content of the text, and writing skills, including the ability to not only reproduce texts but also compose them. Teaching should use an activity-based method, a differentiated approach, a combination of different types of assignments, and interrelated language and culture teaching. This audience faces problems related to interference. The article also highlights the main principles and rules of teaching a language as a foreign one: the role of the foreigner's goal to learn the language, the choice of teaching methods based on the communicative approach, the construction of courses according to the level of language proficiency, the linguistic and cultural aspect, etc. As an example, the International Summer School of Ukrainian Studies «Step to Ukraine» organized by the International Institute of Education, Culture and Diaspora Relations of Lviv Polytechnic National University is cited.