This study is devoted to the description of the psycholinguistic features of Chinese and Vietnamese students, the purpose of which is the successful implementation of intercultural communication in the process of teaching them Russian as a foreign language at the pre-university stage of education. Thanks to the study of intercultural communication, the researcher is able to identify national-specific features of the linguistic consciousness of representatives of different ethnic groups. This information, in turn, allows to model an adequate methodology for teaching Russian as a foreign language, taking into account the relationship of language and culture at the verbal and non-verbal levels. To describe the implementation of the principle of intercultural communication in the methodology of teaching Russian as a foreign language in a Russian university, the authors considered some theoretical points: 1 the concepts of "intercultural communication", "dialogue of cultures" are analyzed; 2 analyzed the main theses of two scientific Russian areas: linguistic and regional studies, which includes, on the one hand, language training, and on the other, certain information about the country of the language being studied (V.G. Kostomarov, E.M. Vereshchagin) [1] and linguoculturology, which studies how different languages reflect cultural aspects with the help of national characteristics - metaphors, phraseological units, proverbs (V.V. Vorobyov, V.N. Telia, V.A. Maslova) [2], [3], [4]. 3 the basic principles of the presentation of educational material in the process of teaching a nonnative language are proposed, taking into account the ethno-psychological characteristics of the Chinese and Vietnamese. At the pre-university stage, many foreigners face adaptation problems due to the huge difference in national consciousness, cultural traditions and rules of behavior. To help foreign students adapt to another language and sociocultural environment, the teacher should have an idea of the psycholinguistic characteristics of representatives of different nationalities. Such accounting contributes to the effectiveness of the process of teaching Russian as a foreign language and to obtain better results. In the article, the authors compare the linguistic consciousness of the Chinese and Vietnamese by the example of an associative experiment, the forms of expression of emotions, national character traits, scenarios of verbal and non-verbal behavior and confirm these facts with examples from proverbs, phraseological units. The authors conclude that for the eastern educational system, the upbringing of traditional value ideas was typical: altruism, self-discipline, responsibility, respect for elders, collectivism.