The Global English Test (GET) is a learner-centered, action-oriented examination designed to assess communicative language proficiency.
Developed by the National Development Initiatives Institute (NDI), the GET conforms to the Common European Framework for language assessment.
The GET is recognised as an authorised test of English proficiency for civil servants, students and the general public in Taiwan, Republic of China.
Domains of the Global English Test
1. General competence: knowledge, characteristics, personality traits, skills and ability to learn.
2. Communicative language competence: linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic competence. While linguistic competence includes knowledge of phonological, morphological, semantic and syntactical relations, sociolinguistic competence deals with linguistic variations caused by social/cultural factors, such as politeness, formality and social class. As for pragmatic competence, it involves language functions, coherence and cohesion and text types.
3. Language activities: skills in listening, reading, speaking, writing and interactions.
4. Social contexts of language use: the four social domains of language use - personal, educational, occupational and public; situations concerning people, affairs, timing and places; conditions such as contexts, people involved and time limits; themes such as diet and entertainment; functions such as inquiries, descriptions, suggestions and instructions; tasks such as job hunting, asking directions, making a presentation; media: face to face, telephones, television, internet; text types such as discussions, reports, journals and letters; strategies such as self-repair, repetition and clarification.
As described above, the definition of language competences refers to holistic communicative language competences, which focus on the language functions in real contexts (language in use) rather than the knowledge of language as defined traditionally.
