Nowadays the problem of professional education quality is considered to be the essential problem of university-level education in Russia. There are a lot of factors influencing the quality of higher education. To define the training quality one should be very specific in purpose-setting and in formulating the results. The results are considered to be a compulsory component, without which it would be impossible to evaluate quality. The quality of the result depends on many factors.

A theoretical study of the problem of pedagogical diagnostics of foreign language training quality for students of a technical university has revealed that this problem has not been sufficiently developed and its study is relevant at present time. The study of the essence of pedagogical diagnostics, as well as its content, methods, features and conditions of implementation at the present stage is one of the most important areas for improving the process of foreign language training at a technical university. The problem of organizing pedagogical diagnostics as a technology for improving the quality of foreign language training for students in a modern higher education institution is quite complex and many-sided and is being solved today from the perspective of various theoretical and methodological approaches. The analysis of scientific and pedagogical literature has shown that to solve the problem of increasing the effectiveness of pedagogical diagnostics in the process of language training in a technical university, the most significant issues are: at the level of general scientific knowledge —  systematic and axiological approaches; at the level of specific scientific methodological knowledge — competence–based and personal-activity approaches; at the private scientific level- a technological approach. The most important feature of the internal correlation of all general scientific and pedagogical approaches is their mutual complementarity, additionality in relation to each other, therefore they acquire the greatest effectiveness in interaction [3].

 In the context of our research we concentrated our attention on the diagnosis of students’ language training quality in a technical university. The foreign language training quality is a systematic object of pedagogical diagnostics. By the quality system of foreign language training for students of a technical university, we mean a complex of interacting components that ensure all stages of studying a foreign language at a technical university, united by a common goal of functioning and unity of management, and guided by the requirements of society for a modern specialist, the needs of students themselves and the creation of optimal conditions for their personal development. We have identified the following criteria for the quality of students’ foreign language training: motivational, cognitive, and competence-based. Hence, the diagnostic subjects are: academic achievements in a foreign language, the presence of positive motivation for educational activities, the formation of diagnostic competence of students. All these are characteristics that can be influenced by the presence of highly productive methods of pedagogical diagnostics [2]. The analysis of the problem of pedagogical diagnostics of foreign language training quality of future engineers in the psychological and pedagogical literature made it possible to identify the most important tasks and functions, determine the system of basic didactic principles, the main types and stages, as well as methods of pedagogical diagnostics. Considering pedagogical diagnostics as a technology is based on the fact that it is a systemic designing activity that permits to program educational situations and the performance of the students and to guarantee the desired training result to the highest level. The main characteristic of pedagogical diagnostics as a technology is that the results can be measured and reproduced.

Pedagogical diagnostics is defined as a technology of subject-to-subject interaction between a teacher and students, which makes it possible to systematically identify qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the process of foreign language training and the results of educational activities of future engineers. Pedagogical diagnostics as a technology for improving the quality of students foreign language training in the educational process at a technical university allows the teacher to receive and record interim and final information about the results of foreign language training quality in a certain time period; evaluate changes occurring in the educational process; note the positive achievements of students in the process of learning a foreign language; identify contradictions and unresolved problems of the learning process of a foreign language, the causes of inconsistencies of the results with the goals set; eliminate the causes of the detected deficiencies and predict ways to achieve better results [1].

The consideration of pedagogical diagnostics as a boosting technology is based on the fact that it is a system design activity that allows programming educational situations, the activities of learning subjects and, with a significant degree of probability, guaranteeing the desired results. An important attribute of pedagogical diagnostics as a technology is the measurability and reproducibility of results. The technological chain of diagnostic actions of teachers and students in the process of learning a foreign language is based on the consistent implementation of the stages of pedagogical diagnostics: goal setting, planning, implementation, pedagogical diagnosis, correction, forecasting. Since learning a foreign language at a university is limited to 1-2 courses, and the need to master it does not disappear in subsequent courses, the main task in the process of diagnosing the quality of students’ foreign language training is to put the future engineer in the position of an active subject of his own activity and develop his self-diagnostic abilities.

It became relevant in the implementation of this task to meaningfully «set» reflection so that the student would have the desire, opportunity and ability to diagnose his achievements while learning a foreign language, be able to doubt, see a mistake, look for ways to overcome it, and be able to anticipate possible consequences of the decision. In this context, the development of the diagnostic competence of future engineers is of particular importance, which is directly dependent on the diagnostic competence of the teacher. The diagnostic competence of a teacher consists in the willingness and ability to apply knowledge and skills to successfully carry out diagnostic activities, organize students’ independent work and encourage them to self-diagnose in the process of learning a foreign language. The diagnostic competence of students consists in the willingness and ability to diagnose the quality of foreign language training both under the guidance of a teacher and independently, and is expressed in a systematic sequence of independent actions of students, enriching their reflexive experience in the process of learning a foreign language.

So, pedagogical diagnostics as a technology is one of the most effective ways to activate the work of students and teachers. It helps students to develop a learning strategy based on their own needs and capabilities. At the same time, the teacher gets the opportunity, based on the analysis of the information received, to provide effective and prompt assistance to students in the learning process, as well as to make decisions in order to increase the effectiveness of the foreign language training process. We strongly believe that the correct and competent organization of the teaching process with the ongoing diagnostic means and procedures ensures the possibility for participants of the educational process  to display creativity in the academic activity, paves the way for the extra ways of cognitive, managerial and administrative personality development, creates unique didactic potential for the teachers and appears to be a technology for the improvement of the students’ language training quality in the technical university.