a) In language learning, there is a distinction between competence and performance. Competence is a state of the speaker's mind - what he or she knows?
d) Separate from actual performance - what he or she does while producing or comprehending language. In other words, competence is put to use through performance.
b) An analogy can be made to the Highway Code for driving. Drivers know the Code and have indeed been tested on it to obtain a driving license.
e) In actual driving, however, the driver has to relate the Code to a continuous flow of changing circumstances, and may even break it from time to time.
c) Knowing the Highway Code is not the same as driving.
