The peculiarities of teaching listening as a type of speech activity during the classes of Ukrainian as a foreign language are analyzed. The concept of “listening” is theoretically justified. It is highlighted that listening is not only a learning goal, but also it is a means of learning the language. Listening permeates the entire learning process and is the basis for mastering other skills: reading, speaking, and writing. The authors pay attention to listening as the perception and comprehension of the sound signal. The sequence of development of listening comprehension skills and removal of difficulties in reception of meaningful text is carried out by doing exercises: special, when listening comprehension is a goal of learning and non-special, when listening comprehension act as a means of other types of speech activity and these exercises contribute to the development of lexical, grammar and phonetic skills of foreign students and put these skills on autopilot. During classes of Ukrainian as a foreign language considerable attention is paid to non-special language exercises, aimed to develop students’ understanding of typical constructions and exemplary phrases, so that they should be able to build their own ones by analogy. Also, the authors emphasize the importance of pre-listening exercises. They pay attention to the fact that the spoken text messages should correspond to the level of psychological and linguistic competence of a foreign student. The authors focus on the lexical and syntactic difficulties of texts perceived by foreigners, and exercises for overcoming them. The article highlights a number of difficulties which are faced by foreign students while learning listening. It has been concluded that is the proper organization of teaching listening with communicative modern methodology is one of the main conditions of successful mastering of Ukrainian as a foreign language. As the listening plays communicative role, stimulates learning and speech activity of students, is used for acquaintance with new language and speech material, and is a means for developing the other skills and abilities, it must be taught intentionally, and it is necessary take into account specificity and complexity of this type of speech activity.