Blurb:

• Linguistic competence is a necessary requirement for somebody who wants to speak in another language. However, communicative competence is also necessary to be able to communicate competently in a second language. Communicative competence comprises the knowledge of the grammatical system of a L2 as well as the knowledge of the social and cultural contexts. Communicative language competence is made up of various components. Although it appears that language ability is divided into hierarchical components of language knowledge, these components all interact with each other and with features of the language use situation. It is the interaction between knowledge and language use in context that characterises communicative language use. Language competence involves two components: language knowledge and strategic competence.
• Language tests need to be thoroughly evaluated before they are used. When you develop a language test the most important consideration is the use for which the test is intended, so its most important quality is its usefulness. Test usefulness includes two main qualities: Reliability; and Validity.