Issues of competence and performance in language assessment
Abstract A specific standardized test of language proficiency called “Grammatical Analysis of Elicited Language (GAEL) for hearing-impaired children was used to examine language usage between the tester and the child. In order to capture language discourse, communication—verbal/nonverbal, and the language context, the entire test-taking sessions were videotaped for three out of the ten children selected for the study. These children primarily used oral language. The test consisted of two partsimitated and prompted. On the imitated component of the test, the study showed that “imitation” does not seem to facilitate grammatical development. “Functional readiness” (Bates & MacWhinney, 1987) was found to be an important factor in the production of a specific linguistic form. It was found that imitated speech was not grammatically more advanced than non-imitated spontaneous speech. On the prompted component of the test, the responses of the children were pragmatically appropriate in many instances yet not conforming to the expected responses on the test. It was shown that the communicative competence needs to be incorporated into the test as part of language proficiency assessment.