The attention of the authors is focused on issues related to professional competencies in context-based learning as a complex multi-level process, one of the products of which is narrative. The main idea of ​​the experiment is that the formation of narrative competence is a purposeful, methodologically managed process of the narrative competence formation in the context-based and cognitive-communicative activities of students - future foreign language teachers. The context in this process is presented as the main control mechanism, which is associated with the concept of "situation", defined as a system of conditions that induce the subject to action and mediate his activity. For the purposes of the research, the authors consider the context within the framework developed by A.A. Zalevskaya concept of internal and external context. The authors attempt to prove that the context of future professional activity and situation is a managing mechanism in the formation of a narrative. The leading component is the external context (the context of the situation) in interaction with the internal context (knowledge and experience) as a result of the processing of cognitive, perceptive and affective information in the process of cognition and communication.