The article considers the problem of practical application of the system approach in the process of foreign students’ social and pedagogical adaptation. The study of this scientific question revealed that acculturation activities should consist of three main areas: psychological, linguistic and cultural, each of them requires the formation of a list of competencies that contribute to the development of the ability of effective interaction building with the host country persons. These competencies, during the interaction at the time of practical academic or social activities of a foreign student, become a competence, a phenomenon that includes many competencies and aimed at their adequate functioning, that leads to a system of competence management, which can be analyzed only using the system approach. In addition, these areas of adaptation activity led to the conclusion that they are also the system-forming elements of the preparatory process, i.e. the system of socio-pedagogical support. Based on the study results that competence is a system of competence management, and the linguistic, cultural and psychological training are a system of adaptive training, the systems approach is defined as a «system within a system» in which the competence system operates in the acculturation triad: linguistic, culture, psychology. The system approach allowed us to study each component of the system of socio-pedagogical support as a separate subsystem. Thus, this approach demonstrated the possibility of identifying the components of the system of foreign students’ support, their essential characteristics, as well as the present relationships. It is emphasized that each element of the support system, psychological, linguistic or educational-cultural is a full-fledged system, however, when interacting with the other elements that aimed at the creating of socio-pedagogical support system, the elements become the subsystems that depend on each other.