8. What is language competence?

8.What is language competence? Language competence Is a broad term which includes linguistic or grammatical competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence. The specific learning outcomes under the heading Language Competence deal with knowledge of the language and the ability to use that knowledge to interpret and produce meaningful texts appropriate to the situation in which they are used. Language competence is best developed in the context of learning activities or tasks where the language is used for real purposes, in other words, in practical applications.
Grammatical competence was seen to encompass “knowledge of lexical items and of rules of morphology, syntax, sentence-grammar semantics, and phonology”
Sociolinguistic competence was defined as involving knowledge of the sociocultural rules of language and of discourse. Sociolinguistic component – assesses the use of linguistic forms in language performance. For example when a student bumps into a professor, spilling her coffee on the professor’s dress, “Sorry!” would probably constitute an inadequate apology. This category assesses the speakers’ control over the actual language forms used to realize the speech function, in this case referred to as a speech act (such as, “sorry,” “excuse me,” “very sorry,” “really sorry”), as well as their control over register or formality of the uttera
Discourse competence was defined as the ability to connect sentences in stretches of discourse and to form a meaningful whole out of a series of utterances.
Strategic competence was seen to refer to “the verbal and nonverbal communication strategies that may be called into action to compensate for breakdowns in communication due to performance variables or due to insufficient competence ”
9Five general principles of assessment: practicality, reliability, validity, authenticity, washback
Principles of assessment serve as a guidelines to ensure that the test is useful, appropriate, effective, and plausible. There are five general principles of assessment:
Practicality Reliability ValidityValidity AuthenticityAuthenticity Washback
Practicality
This principle refers to the time and cost constraints during the construction and administration of an assessment instrument. Meaning that the test should be economical to provide. The format of the test should be simple to understand. Moreover, solving a test should remain within suitable time. It is generally simple to administer. Its assessment procedure should be particular and time-efficient.[4]
Reliability
The principle of reliability refers to the stability of scores over time and different raters.
There are four types of reliability:
Student-related which can be personal problems, sickness, or fatigue,
Rater-related which includes bias and subjectivity,
Test administration-related which is the conditions of test taking process,
Test-related which is basically related to the nature of a test.
Validity
Validity refers to the tests that measure what it claims to measure.
Content validityvalidity Criterion validityvalidity Construct validity
Consequential validity Face validity
Authenticity The assessment instrument is authentic when it is contextualized, contains natural language and meaningful, relevant, and interesting topic, and replicates real world experiences.
Washback This principle refers to the consequence of an assessment on teaching and learning within classrooms. Washback can be positive and negative. Positive washback refers to the desired effects of a test, while negative washback refers to the negative consequences of a test. In order to have positive washback, instructional planning can be used.