Abstract
This paper is a follow-up paper to Nunn (2005). In combination, these two papers consider the meaning of competence when English is used as an International Language (EIL). This second paper focuses on definitions and concludes with a global definition of competence. ‘Competence’ is partially defined in relation to the communities in which individual members apply it. In this paper, the meaning of ‘community’ is considerably developed from the discussion of ‘speech community’ in the first paper, to include ‘discourse’, ‘bi-lingual’, ‘local’ and ‘international’ characterizations. ‘Competence’ is then contrasted with other related concepts, such as ‘proficiency’. Discussion of the holistic, interlocking nature of five different types of competence is developed from the first paper and five characteristics of International Communicative Competence (ICC) are outlined.

International/global aspects of competence are always applied in specific, ‘local’ contexts. The middle section of this paper considers just two local educational contexts in Asia. The discussion is supported by a few data samples from projects reported elsewhere, including a full report of a sponsored project conducted at the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi, a university that aims to produce engineers from the local community who are able to perform to international standards and to communicate in English within a multi-national organization (full report available electronically on request). Members of local institutions that aspire to educational excellence in an international field need to learn to interact with various kinds of ‘communities’ in order to achieve an appropriate balance between international and local conceptions of competence. As a comparison, a very different academic community will be described in a Japanese university where a general English course teaches skills for international communication to all first-year students regardless of academic discipline.

Key words:- English as an International Language (EIL), global definition of competence,

I. The meaning of competence

While it is common to begin a paper with ‘definitions’, characterizing the global, holistic and complex nature of the concept of International Communicative Competence is one of the final aims of this paper. A detailed definition will therefore be provided only in the conclusion. One approach to reading this very long paper would therefore be to start with the conclusion and then to read back to see how the definition was arrived at. The paper is also to be read as a follow up to Nunn (2005) in which it was argued, through a review of the literature on EIL, that competence has yet to be adequately addressed in recent considerations of EIL. The earlier paper first discussed the need to reconsider the scope of 'communicative competence' and then considered types of competence relevant to EIL including linguistic competence. It critically examined demographic descriptions of World English use in relation to competence and discussed the kinds of competence that are embodied in the corpora that are currently being used for the development of teaching materials.

This paper considerably develops the arguments presented in that paper with a view to attempting a definition of EIL competence. Traditional definitions of competence are often based on native use, whereas EIL students in local academic communities are using English as a second language, and might normally be expected to achieve competence in relation to broad but inclusive international and global criteria. Local institutions that aspire to educational excellence in an international field such as engineering automatically belong to an ‘international community’ and need to aim for a balance between international and local definitions of competence. The notion of ‘community’ is important in this respect. As ‘communicative competence’ has often been defined in relation to monolingual ‘speech communities’ (see Nunn, 2005), this paper will first consider whether there is an equivalent notion of ‘international community’ and how this notion links up to the ‘local communities’ such as the PI community in which English is taught.

Competence and ‘community’
Before even attempting to ‘characterize’ competence – for it is far too complex a concept to allow simple ‘definition’ – it is important to consider where it is actually located and where it is used. A common assumption is that it is a resource available to individuals and exists in the individual. However, competence in the various research disciplines related to language and communication is often defined in relation to a notion of ‘community’. Competence is then related to what needs to be known by individuals within a particular community in order to function as a member in relation to certain shared values and norms. In this respect, some kind of ideal community is sometimes evoked. In attempting to characterize competence in our age of international communication within and across disciplines, it is difficult to propose a clear-cut characterization of ‘international community’. The competent international English user will need to move between or operate within various kinds of communities. Some commonly used characterizations of community are considered below in relation to EIL.

Speech community
It was suggested in Nunn (2005) that ‘Speech Community’ was a term that usually refers to homogenous communities of native speakers. EIL competence needs for students in some local contexts might involve the need to communicate with or even within such monolingual English speaking communities. This could be for long- or short-term study purposes or for long-term academic and professional relationships. Trudgill (2003) is not alone in characterizing ‘communicative’ competence in terms of native norms within speech communities. "All native speakers of a language also have to know how to use that language appropriately in the society in which they live" (p. 24). He adds, "Non-native speakers also have to acquire communicative as well as linguistic competence when learning a foreign language, if they are to be able to use that language effectively and appropriately and to participate in cross-cultural communication". Here the definition does not specifically relate to English and one implication could be that cross-cultural communication requires the non-native to adapt to the native norms, which is not always the case. In organizations such as ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company) in Abu Dhabi for example, where students from one local context referred to in this research will eventually work, the norms used in relation to English are very diverse, but native speaker norms do not dominate.

Trudgill (Ibid.) goes on (p.49) to define speech acts as "acts of identity" within speech communities. Importantly for EIL communication, he distinguishes "diffuse" and "focused" speech communities. In focused communities, "only a narrow range of identities is available for enactment". EIL communication is more easily associated with the other pole, being potentially very diffuse, given the potentially broad differences within and between varieties of English. Trudgill does not define a speech community only in terms of native speakers, defining it also as "a community of speakers who share the same verbal repertoire, and who also share the same verbal norms of behaviour" (p.126). This definition would still not fit EIL use easily as norms of behaviour are unlikely to be shared. The idea of membership is also problematic.

Speech community is also used in socio-linguistics to refer to multiple memberships of sub-communities such as student communities, cricket-playing communities, classical-music communities, etc. In this view, we all belong to multiple communities within a parent community. Members of sub-communities have communication possibilities in common with other sub-communities across national boundaries and these may be stronger than the possibilities available with co-‘members’ within the parent speech community. Being a member of a cricketing speech community within one’s own culture makes communication across cultures with members of cricketing communities possible. Members of a parent speech community, for example, listening to a cricket commentary and hearing discussions of key cricketing phenomena such as ‘LBW’, may understand very little. Cases of ‘LBW’ can be very complicated. (When the ball hits the batsman’s pad in front of the wicket he might be given out ‘Leg Before Wicket’.) While ‘LBW’ is incomprehensible to non-cricketers even within a mono-cultural speech community, it is more easily discussed between cricket-playing sub-communities from totally different national and cultural backgrounds.     

Linguistic competence and speech community
‘Linguistic’ competence is often linked to the seminal work of Noam Chomsky. It is often pointed out that Chomsky’s concern is with a universal innate language faculty of the brain and that Chomsky does not refer to any specific notion of an actual community. Indeed, Chomsky is normally associated with ideal use within a non-existent ‘ideal speech’ community. However, while Thompson (2004) and others suggest that Chomsky has nothing to say about language use, in “New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind”, Chomsky does address the issue (2000, pp.19-45). It is true that Chomsky suggests that there is reason to believe that the I-languages (‘grammatical competence’) are distinct from conceptual organization and ‘pragmatic competence’ and that these systems can be “selectively impaired and developmentally dissociated” (p. 26). However, there is also evidence that Chomsky (2000, p.27) sees I-language as part of an integrated communication system: “We are studying a real object, the language faculty of the brain, which has assumed the form of a full I-language and is integrated into performance systems that play a role in articulation, interpretation, expression of beliefs and desires, referring, telling stories, and so on.” Chomsky (2000) still refers to his traditional distinction between ‘competence’ and ‘performance’ but does not necessarily dismiss the latter as unworthy of scrutiny, conceding that “I –languages are embedded in performance systems” (p. 34).

Of relevance to the notion of EIL competence is Chomsky’s challenge to the view that communities own languages as fixed common entities. According to Chomsky,  (2000, p.31) “…the notion of “community” or “common language” makes as much sense as the notion “nearby city” or “look alike” without further specification of interests, leaving the analysis vacuous.” One view expressed by Chomsky (2000) is not dissimilar to Sperber and Wilson’s (1995) challenge of another notion often used to characterize communities, the notion of “shared knowledge”, when he argues that, “Successful communication between Peter and Mary does not entail the existence of shared meanings or shared pronunciations in a public language (or a common treasure of thoughts or articulations of them)…” (p. 30).

This argument is interesting in that it can allow for the notion of individually different, or culturally different, knowledge between speakers of the ‘same’ language. Chomsky (op. cit. p.30) challenges the idea that “the basic function of a natural language is to mediate communication”. He does not argue that a language does not do this; only that “it is unclear what sense can be given to an absolute notion of “basic function” for any biological system”.  Chomsky concludes that the notion of “conforming to the practice of a community” is problematic whether a community is defined as homogeneous or heterogeneous (p.31). The argument that individuals regardless of origin have the innate ability to create and can adjust their innate ability regardless of community constraints is a powerful, if problematic, concept with international potential.

While it is common to dismiss such claims as unverifiable, the question is whether such a view is just a question of faith. It can also be seen as the result, if not of conclusive evidence, of rigorous argumentation based on our undeniable common experience that distinguishes humans from other species. We may decide to exclude views of ‘internal’ competence from certain approaches to research, because they are difficult to investigate, but it is nonetheless, difficult to dismiss the existence of internal competence in the form of an I-language and attempts at global definitions cannot definitively exclude perspectives just because they appear to be incompatible with other perspectives. In relation to language learners, Chomsky (2000) argues that, “we gain no insight into what they are doing by supposing that there is a fixed entity they are approaching, even if some sense can be made of this mysterious notion” (p. 32).

Chomsky is also linked to a key idea that is arguably neglected in language teaching, the notion of linguistic creativity. Creativity in this sense is the ability to create an infinite number of utterances from the finite linguistic resources available. Utterances are not simply learnt and regurgitated. Humans have the ability to create utterances that are unique and have never been generated in quite that form before. There is still an assumption of limitation to this creative aspect of language. The original view seems to have been that the limits are related to what is deemed acceptable by the educated native speaker. This view is no longer workable in our age of international communities and the preponderance of actual English use by and often between non-native speakers.
Gomez (2006) suggests that, in spite of the publicity given to Chomsky's view, "the key concept of linguistic creativity has only been minimally dealt with in the specialized literature of linguistics" (p. 50). (But see Crystal, 1998, on Language Play.) While the creative aspect of competence may appear to have been neglected recently, it has seen something of a revival as a response to over rigid advocacy of corpora as the only source of acceptable language use and in works in which native-speaker dominance is no longer accepted as an arbitrator of creative use, such as in Carter (2004). Gomez highlights the point made by Carter (2004), namely that linguistic creativity is not limited to the native speaker, and needs to be considered more carefully in relation to language learners. Zheng (2007) develops the idea beyond just linguistic aspects, suggesting that the current definition of creativity "is an ability to produce work that is novel and appropriate" (p. 6). Linguistic creativity is subtly related to this broader view in that it contributes to creative content within genres.  

To sum up, ‘speech community’ is a problematic concept for EIL, but this does not mean that it is not a useful or adaptable concept. Students have very diverse reasons for using English and some of these may be for study and extended residence within a so-called native ‘speech community’, however heterogeneous this may prove to be. It will be argued below that some notions linked to ‘speech communities’ such as appropriateness can be disassociated from a narrow view of ‘speech communities’ and put to use to help define competence from a broader perspective.

Discourse community

In relation to education, EIL competence needs might also include the need to participate in some kind of academic or professional ‘discourse community’. (See Nunn and Adamson, this volume, for further discussion.) A discourse community is characterized as a specialized community with relatively exclusive membership requirements in relation to a particular academic or vocational field such as a chemical engineering community. A paradoxical further characterization of discourse communities is that membership can be viewed as peripheral (Flowerdew, 2000, p.129) by a relatively large number of its so-called members. Flowerdew’s membership criteria (2000, p.127) based on Swales (1990) include the following:

1. Common goals,
2. participatory mechanisms,
3. information exchange,
4. community-specific genres,
5. highly specialized terminology,
6. high general level of expertise.

Lave and Wenger's (1991) notion of "legitimate peripheral participation" as evoked by Flowerdew (2000, p.131) makes legitimate membership less exclusive in that peripheral  participation (publishing an article in a journal, for example, or writing a lab report) is legitimate. Aspirant members may therefore attempt to participate in the community of practice of a discourse community and “even experienced scholars need to continually negotiate their position as members of the discourse community as that position is ratified by the acceptance of their writing for publication” (p.131).

Local community
Canagarajah (2006) points out that “local Englishes are now traveling” (p.590). Local characterizations of ‘community’ can no longer be opposed to international characterizations, as few local communities where English is used are now impervious to outside influence. Canagarajah (2005) provides a detailed characterization of the relationship between the global and the local. The way local communities absorb, reject, incorporate or resist outside influence is a complex phenomenon. Canagarajah (2006) argues that, “English should be treated as a multi-national language, one that belongs to diverse communities and not owned only by the metropolitan communities” (p. 589). The diverse communities compose a “heterogeneous system of Global English”. He coins the phrase “code meshing” for the relationship between local varieties of English and a so-called standard. John Adamson (2007 - personal correspondence) puts this as follows:
Recent work by Canagarajah looks at the interface between national policies/globalization and local practices/knowledge. What strikes me as particularly resonant is that there is a discomfort in the interface between perceived speech community, national policy, globalized EIL and local realities especially in terms of what 'competence(s)' mean.

International community - A community of local and hybrid communities

We soon notice when processing international news that ‘International Community’ has become an example of convenient media speak and is most commonly used to serve narrow partisan national interests. Former American ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, is even quoted as saying, “there is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States.” (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1515816,00.html in a Times Online article). For a more global perspective, we must turn to international jurists such as Antonio Cassesse (2003) who refers to ‘fundamental standards of ‘the world community’ according to which individuals may to be held to account.

For linguists it is difficult to accept a singular conceptualization of ‘International Community’, unless it is used as a global umbrella term for some kind of ‘community of communities’. In this sense, it is a pluralized, multi-glossic concept that interacts with all the other concepts of community previously characterized. International communities may range from temporary communities that form and dissolve in relation to particular events (such as attendance at a conference) to semi-permanent more stable communities that share long-term goals, such as the Asian EFL Journal editorial group. To be called communities we might minimally specify (1) some form of common goal even if the details remain to be negotiated. (2) Some mechanisms of participation specifying things like attendance (whether through physical or online presence – such as skyping other members). Membership might be relatively unstable involving forming, dissolving, reforming. (3) Some need to exchange information also seems to be a pre-requisite to participate in a community. (4) Some common purposes and norms, while open to negotiation, might also be specified, although the extent to which these become 'genres' might not be rigidly defined. Temporary and evolving generic conventions might be the norm. No communities are permanent, but we may assume that the strains on maintaining membership in internationally oriented communities might be greater and it might be physically easier to stop being a member. (5) Linguistic and pragmatic negotiations of meanings are likely to be central activities of international communities. (This does not mean that mono-cultural communities do not also need these, but they might not be aware of language issues to the same extent, even if evidence shows that they might need to be). The way that competence is defined in a local community will need to consider all the characterizations outlined above as membership of the community will also involve communication with or within different combinations of all these kinds of community. 

II. Competence and related concepts

Competence is an abstract concept and as such difficult to define in a simple way. It is best seen as part of a network of concepts which might sometimes be used as synonyms, sometimes overlap, sometimes stand in contrast to each other. In the EFL domain some of these are: ‘proficiency’, ‘ability’, ‘skills’, ‘achievement’, ‘knowledge’, and ‘performance’. In EFL writing, ‘competence’ still most commonly co-occurs with ‘communicative’ but is also commonly found in the company of such words as ‘pragmatic’, ‘linguistic’, ‘academic’, ‘intercultural’. Partly depending on the collocational company it is keeping, it is subject to connotational layers of meaning that can be negative. Certain collocations, such as ‘communicative competence’ might also have outlived their usefulness due to overuse and their associations with particular ideologies of teaching that provoke polemical rather than balanced discussion.

The consequences of competence being a broad, holistic concept can easily be underestimated. As a global concept, it can be provisionally defined as the total available range of (multi-cultural) abilities, skills, knowledge and experience that can be drawn upon for any particular performance by an individual or group of individuals to address a real-world task or set of tasks. When competence is used as a local rather than as a global concept, it is then commonly redefined to focus on a local situation. A local definition is always only partial, consisting of those aspects of global competence that are brought to bear on a particular real-world task in a local context. Naturally ‘local competence’ does not exist in isolation, either from the global definition or from other local competences.

As a global concept that is always put into practice in specific local contexts it follows that competence can never be achieved or even comprehended fully by one individual or totally applied even by a group of individuals in any local constituency. Each of us has only a partial view of the whole. The metaphor of a globe is useful here. We can only see a small part of the surface of the globe at any one time and cannot easily look below the surface.
In local institutions such as the Petroleum Institute in the UAE it is possible to view competence needs along a cline from local to international. On the one hand, the Petroleum Institute is a university with the aim of providing engineers for ADNOC, the national oil company. This is a relatively local issue. At the same time, the new university has the long-term ambition of competing internationally in terms of excellence. In such a situation, locally sponsored research has a clear two-sided need to consider both local and global definitions of competence. The dynamic tension between these two different motivations can lead to progress in both local and global definitions.

As an even broader concept, it then follows that ‘international communication competence’ cannot be fully displayed or possessed by mono-cultural individuals, or indeed in any total sense, by individuals even from multi-cultural backgrounds. It is likely to be most holistically displayed by groups of individuals working together synergistically from a variety of backgrounds.

Definitions of related concepts
In her detailed discussion on the problems of competence-related concepts, Iyldyz (2007) underlines the need for careful definition of the proficiency/competence concept within EIL. While ‘competence’ and ‘proficiency’ are sometimes used interchangeably, competence’ will be contrasted with ‘proficiency’ in this paper, the former being a global concept, the latter being defined here only in relation to particular task specifications for tests (such as an essay-writing test), learning tasks (such as decision-making conversations) or communication genres (such as research report writing for engineering students). As mentioned above, characterizing ‘competence’ as a global concept is a useful metaphor, as rather like a globe, we can only see some parts of it at one time and do not easily see below the surface.

In contrast, ‘proficiency’ is defined for this report in relation to the levels of ability or abilities actually demonstrated when performing particular academic tasks. It can be measured in relation to particular performances by using rating scales. Such scales are a partial summary of knowledge and behaviours in the form of banded descriptions of particular behaviours for different levels of performance on a task. These descriptions reflect global definitions of competence. Where ‘proficiency’ alone is used, the result may become a purely utilitarian and often arbitrary evaluation of behaviours associated only with one task or one context, detached from any coherent global view of what constitutes ‘competence’ and even detached from a candidate’s underlying ability. Measuring proficiency on a particular task might nonetheless be effective, but measurements of singles performances are difficult to generalize across settings so proficiency is best measured using a variety of tasks. Furthermore, there is likely to be some unstated underlying lay concept of ‘competence’ that is difficult to identify or defend as it has not been made explicit.

‘Performance’ is used here only to mean a unique spoken or written outcome produced at one particular time and in one particular place in a particular set of circumstances. Proficiency is normally measured on a range of tasks which therefore encompasses several performances. In assessing levels of ‘proficiency’ on particular tasks, we need to appeal to a super-ordinate global concept of ‘competence’, as a holistic, multidimensional construct. Competence is seen as a combination of the knowledge and the ability to use the knowledge that underlies every performance. This implies that a competent person will normally be expected to perform well, but may sometimes perform badly in a particular situation without allowing a valid long-term judgment to be made on that person’s competence.

One further construct, ‘achievement’, is used here to refer to particular courses. We might ideally expect achievement over time to reflect competence, but achievement is a limited concept. It is associated only with the requirements of particular courses or tests or parts of courses or tests. These might highlight quite limited aspects of competence. It is possible to achieve a very high pass in an achievement test on limited components such as the form of past tenses of English verbs without being able to use these meaningfully beyond the test or beyond the course. 

Compensation
These definitions imply that evaluating ‘levels’ of proficiency that reflect competence using over-specific criteria needs particular care. Two students evaluated as having equal levels may have a very different profile. No two students can be assumed to be equally proficient in all aspects of competence. Assuming each student is more proficient in different aspects, it is assumed that each one can compensate for those aspects which are less developed, the end result being a similar level of proficiency in a particular performance. Compensation between components of a multidimensional construct makes it difficult to determine a fixed system of evaluating competence in terms of the categories chosen, as high ability in one might reduce the need for high ability in another. 

Even when using common scales or rubrics, it cannot be assumed that two teachers are actually using the same criteria or will evaluate the same performance in the same way. Attempts are made in rubrics or rating scales to summarize a global concept, rather than describe it in a definitive way. In evaluating students during and at the end of a course, the complex relationship between ‘competence’, ‘proficiency’, ‘performance’ and ‘achievement’ needs careful consideration. 

Appropriateness and EIL
As a key concept of communicative competence (Hymes, 1972), and originally used in relation to mono-cultural speech communities, ‘appropriateness’ has commonly been used to refer to the norms and values that help to determine what would be appropriate in a given situation within each community. In this study, a more diverse range of communities has been evoked. ‘Appropriateness’ will therefore be disassociated from any exclusive link to monolingual speech communities.

Standard dictionary definitions of ‘appropriate’ usually refer to ‘situation’, ‘context’ or ‘circumstances’. Collins Cobuild (1988), for example, defines appropriate as meaning “suitable and acceptable for a particular situation” (p.35). OALD (2000) suggests: “suitable, acceptable or correct for the particular circumstances” (p.50). Roget’s International Thesaurus (1988) provides the following synonyms: apt, expedient, relevant, right, timely, useful, well-chosen…” (p.812). Such non-specialized definitions leave several questions unanswered. Crystal (2003), in his specialized dictionary, links appropriateness to “a linguistic variety or form which is considered suitable or possible in a given social situation” (p. 30). Crystal’s definition also takes issue with the inclusion of ‘correct’ as a synonym as ‘appropriateness’ is not a prescriptive term concerned with correctness, but one that admits ‘different expectations of different situations’. Crystal goes on to suggest that, to be appropriate, certain criteria must be met, a potentially useful explanation for designing and interpreting rating scales.

‘Appropriateness’ for Spitzberg (1994) is defined as “enacting behavior in a manner that is fitting to the context, thereby avoiding the violation of valued rules, expectancies, or norms” (p.31). Spitzberg usefully disassociates competence from conformity or even politeness, arguing that “there are novel situations in which there are no norms to conform to, and because one of the more competent maneuvers may be to renegotiate the existing norms or rules” (p.32). Spitzberg points out that one can be appropriate but ineffective and vice versa but that any definition of the elusive ‘ideal’ communication might need to include both. For EIL, many situations may be novel so interim norms will need to be developed. Where there are no common norms or norms are familiar to only one interlocutor, some form of negotiation of communication norms will be needed to be ‘effective’. This means that ‘appropriateness’ will sometimes need to be dissociated from the notion of ‘speech community’. An appropriate contribution can be made in intercultural situations in which the norms of just one particular speech community would be ‘inappropriate’.

An appropriate contribution is then one that considers the circumstances, the setting, the background of the interlocutors and the purposes of the communication. In academic communication it would include criteria such as audience, genre, task specifications and discourse community norms. It would consider feasibility and an awareness of what might be needed to be effective, although there is no guarantee of success even when a contributor makes every effort to behave appropriately.

III. Language holistically defined
Competence is defined for many different purposes and these purposes will influence the scope of each definition. Pedagogical definitions will highlight competence in terms of skills, such as literacy skills encompassing both reading and writing skills or spoken language skills encompassing speaking and listening skills. They will also highlight lexico-grammatical ability, including systemic notions such as collocation and colligation. Some approaches to language teaching emphasize multi-skill approaches. Other ways of viewing competence focus on what is needed to acquire it both in a first or second language context. Sometimes the most usable definitions come from the field of assessment, in which case, the attempt is to determine those aspects that should be tested.

The recent work of Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) and Thompson (2004) in systemic linguistics also points to the holistic nature of competence. The overriding implication of systemic linguistics is that the competent user has acquired knowledge of a complex set of interlocking systems and that he is able to put this knowledge to use. Halliday and Mathiessen (2004) note that systemic theory attempts to be comprehensive: "it is concerned with language in its entirety, so that whatever is said about one aspect is to be understood always with reference to the total picture" (p.3). They provide this holistic framework as a representation of the kind of knowledge that underpins competent use of a language. A systemic explanation of language implies that the knowledge required for competent use acts as a holistic resource available to the user. Users create text and "a text is the product of ongoing selection in a very large network of systems – a system network" (p.23). "We cannot explain why a text means what it does, with all the various readings and values that may be given it except by relating it to the linguistic system as a whole" (p.3). A user makes appropriate local choices and selections in particular contexts based on the limitations of his or her systemic knowledge. "A language is a resource for making meaning, and meaning resides in systemic patterns of choice."

The systemic network can be divided into three components, 'ideational', 'interpersonal' and 'textual'. At each level, choices are made from within the three systems simultaneously for any utterance. Any utterance is hence multi-functional and the structure or form of the utterance is the product resulting from the process of making systemic choices at these three levels. While Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) concede that systemic linguistics provides a very complex explanation of language knowledge, they justify this by stating, "if the account seems complex, this is because the grammar is complex" (p.5).

Although the notion of systemic 'competence' relates to a user's whole knowledge (which is inevitably partial) not all aspects of this competence will be called upon in all situations. Conversely, certain aspects will need to be present in given situations. Another implication is that to demonstrate competence, students need to be assessed when handling substantial stretches of text. At the same time, demonstrating competence means the ability to make possible and appropriate choices from a finite linguistic system within the context that the choices are made in. These appropriate contextual choices are related to participation in the various kinds of community that individuals communicate in, as outlined in this section.

Evaluating individual competence
While competence is defined in terms of community membership, it is individuals who take exams, graduate, apply and are recruited for jobs. It is no simple task to evaluate individual competence in relation to team competence in such a complex area as academic writing. Flowerdew (2000, p. 19) suggests there are normal legitimate limits to the individual nature of academic writing citing Prior (1998). Prior describes academic writing as mediated. It is not normally an individual competence, as academic writing "does not emanate from a single author, but [is] jointly constructed by various parties in addition to the actual writer, as he or she reads, discusses, revises collaboratively, and so on" (p.22).

This implies that to assess competence a variety of different genres need to be envisaged. In the Petroleum Institute context, at one end of the cline is an individual diagnostic piece in which the student writes unassisted with a strict time limit on an unknown topic with no documents or reference aids such as dictionaries. At the other end, a team written research report in evaluated which is written through collaborative multiple drafting, with full academic resources including consultation and feedback on the first draft from tutors. It is, however, unrealistic and too simple to conclude that it is the first kind of text which reflects the student's competence. To consider the second type as a measure of individual competence is also problematic. Various intermediate stages can also be envisaged and need to be considered carefully.

Some inherent problems of defining communicative competence both locally and internationally can be addressed by using competent students’ work as one a way of defining targets rather than just using an external model, which may be perceived locally as being irrelevant and unattainable. In this way, global aspects of competence are balanced with local realities.  To illustrate how different ‘local realities’ can be, a very different academic community will be briefly described within a Japanese University where a general English course taught to all first-year students regardless of academic discipline develops skills for international communication.

IV. Comparison of two local contexts
The holistic, global concept of competence, while relevant to all contexts, can never be totally applied in local contexts. Certain aspects of competence described in this section were identified to respond to a local need at a national university in Japan, where a course in English Conversation had recently become compulsory for all first-year students. Students at this level have diverse competence needs. Science students and International Studies students have potential membership needs in both monolingual English speech communities and in specialized international discourse communities. However, the majority of students are unlikely to develop a relationship with any kind of English ‘community’ and most students can be primarily identified as members of a monolingual Japanese speaking community. It is difficult to predict a common set of future needs for all students, although all must take the same course.

Observation of English classes in local secondary schools and initial assessment by university instructors indicated that students had had little experience in participating in conversations. The development of interactive skills was therefore identified as an appropriate general aim for first-year university classes.

The simple ability to keep a basic conversation going was identified as lacking in around 60% of students during placement tests for streaming students. 60% of students were identified as beginner, or elementary level speakers of English in a conversational context. Teachers’ own subsequent evaluation at the start of classes with streamed students did not contradict this finding. While this was a compulsory course, it can be argued that many of these students would never use even the kind of basic lingua franca skills taught in this course in the future. But this is a somewhat circular argument as only students who have developed competence are able to use it. It is difficult to exclude the possibility that students will at some time, within their own country or when traveling or communicating online, need at least spontaneous lingua franca survival skills. 

Why teach small-group interactive competence?
Assuming the need is correctly identified, sometimes in spite of the students’ own perception, we might then make appeal to appropriate global theory to identify and conceptualize the competence required. The example below, which is perfectly understandable to the interlocutors, illustrates the problem of small-group interaction in impervious, mono-cultural groups:
-  Where would you like to go?
-  Maybe Italia.
-  Oh, do you like Hide?
-  Yes, of course.
-  I see.

The solution found for this type of outcome was role-play involving students in researching foreign countries and playing the role of foreigners. Students must then realize the need to negotiate meaning as outsiders: “What or who is ‘Hide’?” (Hidetoshi Nakata, at the time of this conversation, was a famous Japanese footballer playing for an Italian team.)

Summary of needs

Lingua franca skills	Based on immediate local “needs” in terms of perceived weaknesses
Immediate returns	Basic “lingua franca” conversation skills of global applicability in temporary international communities
Focus on intelligibility	Adaptive intercultural skills for international communication
Supported by concepts and practices from global models	Turn-taking, negotiation of meaning

Conversational analysis is a useful resource for the kind of course that needs to develop an awareness that conversation is a participant-managed system. Active attention to the obtention and distribution of turns to speak is a key aspect of competence (Sacks and Schegloff, 1974, p. 234). But students in this local context are often extremely reluctant to either self-select or to take the responsibility for nominating the next speaker (“current speaker select next”) in a formal classroom context. Engaging in the “here-and-now” process of adjusting to other participants` contributions (Coulthard 1992; Tsui, 1994) and negotiating real understanding (Bygate, 1987, pp.22-41) are necessary skills in terms of interaction in a foreign language, and worthwhile in terms of promoting truly intercultural exchange.

A comparison of rating scales developed for two different contexts will be used here to illustrate how the global notion of competence can lead to the targeting of very local aspects in particular contexts. In the Japanese context, for the general education course in spoken communication skills, the following scales were developed based on competence criteria largely drawn from conversation analysis after analysis of the local context.

Four scales were used covering (1) the ability to keep a conversation going, (2) the content of contributions, (3) lexico-grammatical intelligibility, (4) intelligibility of pronunciation. Only the first two scales will be illustrated here. These cover the interactive ability (1) to participate in keeping a conversation going in terms of turn-taking and negotiation, without which ability in other categories is difficult to demonstrate or assess, and (2) the ability to bring about a genuine exchange of information and express feelings, opinions and attitudes in relation to the information. Each of the four scales is a combination of two other scales. For example, scale 1 below is a combination of scales 1a and 1b. 

1. Keeping a Conversation Going: Turn-taking and Negotiation

1. Has (almost) no ability to keep a conversation going. Without constant help, the conversation is always likely to break down.  2. Rarely self selects, but responds minimally to other speakers and sometimes supports their contributions. Negotiates rarely and/or only with a very limited repertoire. Communication sometimes breaks down without support. 3. Responds fully when nominated, supports other speakers and sometimes self selects. Has an adequate repertoire for negotiation. Communication almost never breaks down. 4. Is able to take initiatives, self-selecting and negotiating whenever necessary drawing on a wide repertoire of expressions and techniques. Helps other participants to join in and interrupts politely when appropriate.

1a. Keeping a Conversation Going: Turn-taking

1.  Has (almost) no ability to exploit turn-taking to keep a conversation going. Without constant help, the conversation is always likely to break down.  2.  Rarely self selects, but responds minimally to other speakers and sometimes supports their contributions. Only rarely nominates other speakers, even when he/she has the floor. Communication sometimes breaks down without support. 3.  Responds fully when nominated, supports other speakers and sometimes self selects. Communication almost never breaks down. 4.  Is able to take initiatives, self-selecting, holding the floor, interrupting or nominating as the conversation demands. Helps other participants to join in.

1b. Making Communication Effective: Negotiation

1. Has (almost) no ability to negotiate effectively. Without constant help, communication of even basic information is unlikely to be successful.  2. Sometimes adjusts to the contributions of other speakers, but only rarely negotiates and then only with a very limited repertoire limiting the effectiveness of the communication. 3. Is able to negotiate when necessary, adjusting to the contributions of other speakers and demonstrating an adequate repertoire for negotiation. Communication is normally effective and successful. 4. Is able to adjust fully to other speakers’ contributions, taking initiatives and negotiating persistently whenever necessary, drawing on a wide repertoire of expressions and techniques. Takes a full share of the responsibility for successful communication.

Teachers in this context have observed that when these skills are lacking, it is difficult to evaluate the level of ability in any other category, such as the content of contributions (or lexico-grammatical competence.)

2. Content of Contributions: Exchanging Information, Ideas, and Feelings

1. Has almost no ability to communicate even basic information such as age, price, etc 2. Can only communicate the most basic information, and cannot really express ideas or feelings on anything but the most basic everyday topics. 3. Can communicate information on a reasonable range of topics and can express opinions, feelings and ideas to a certain degree on a more limited range of topics. 4. Has a sound ability to communicate information, and express feelings, opinions, and ideas on a variety of topics.

2a Content of Contributions: Exchanging Information

1.  Has almost no ability to communicate even basic information such as age, price, etc. 2.  Can only exchange the most basic information on common everyday topics. 3.  Can exchange information adequately on a reasonable range of topics. 4.  Has a sound ability to exchange information on a wide variety of topics.

2b. Content of Contributions: Expression of Opinions, Ideas, and Feelings

1. Has (almost) no ability to communicate even basic opinions, ideas or feelings. 2. Can only express opinions, ideas or feelings in a fairly limited manner on basic everyday topics. 3. Can express opinions, feelings and ideas adequately on common topics. 4. Has a sound ability to express feelings, opinions, and ideas on a variety of topics.

Intelligibility
When the course objectives lean more towards the confidence-building skills related to keeping a conversation going, the other two assessed aspects of competence, pronunciation (both individual sounds and intonation), grammar and vocabulary are both assessed in terms of intelligibility in a conversational context and not as ends in themselves.

Local Context 2
When compared to scales used to summarize the competence criteria of advanced research writing skills in a different context (Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi), it is difficult from an initial scrutiny to identify common features. (The upper band only is illustrated here for comparison.)

At the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi, a university for engineering students, freshman students study two communication courses, the second of which develops communication skills through a semester-long team research project in two stages culminating in an extensive written report and a sophisticated multimedia presentation. Student teams create a variety of documents related to project management, such as memoranda of understanding, source evaluations, progress reports, research proposals and movie-maker presentation storyboards. The following is the upper band (‘excellent’) of the rating scale for research-based writing in this context. 

The following is a task description of the research report drafted at the end of ten-week team project:

Task specification: Final Research Report

The final research report is a team-drafted report. There is no specified length but the report is normally a maximum of 5000 words including appendices and could be considerable shorter. All team members are expected to contribute equally to both the research project and the drafting of the report. The final product should be professionally drafted and presented and carefully proofread before submission. The first draft of this report counts 15% of your final grade and the second draft 10%. This means that by the time the first draft is submitted, a team needs to have become proficient at drafting and proofreading.

The report normally includes a general introduction to the project, a background review section, a description and justification of the methods used to gather data, a results section, a discussion section and a conclusions /recommendations section. A reference list is required for all in-text references. This pattern is a common one for academic reports but other variations might be possible depending on the topic and the research approach. The important point is to lead coherently to a discussion and conclusion section which answers your research question(s) and shows that you have done everything possible to achieve your aims. Competent writers of long documents often use meta-communication to explain the purpose of different sections and to explain their organization to the reader. They also explain their reasoning (demonstrating critical thinking) supported by facts, evidence and good argumentation. They do not make unreasonable claims about their findings, but use modality to express an appropriate level of confidence in them.

You are required to write an abstract, which is not an introduction. In the abstract, you should summarize your whole report including the main findings. The introduction typically describes the topic area briefly and explains and justifies the choice and relevance of the topic in general terms. You need to convince an academic reader that this document is worth reading, that your topic is relevant and that the research is useful. The focus and scope of the project might also be outlined here, and your research question(s) introduced, but you might feel you can do this better after the background section. The background section will include a literature review. (The library staff are available to provide assistance here.) You will provide important background information and summarize any relevant previous research on your topic. All sections should be relevant and appropriate use of citation and reporting verbs is very important. This section could be a synthesis of relevant parts of individual source evaluations already written by team members. It should also attempt to outline what research, if any, has already been done in the PI on this topic and might include other kinds of documents such as background interviews with specialists in the field.

The method section should explain the approaches you adopted to collect your data and why you chose them. Normally the methods chosen should be justified as the best ways to answer your research questions. A single method is often not enough. This section could also explain what kind of data you need and in what form. (Such as open-ended survey answers expressing detailed opinions.)

In the results section you should present all relevant findings (which does not mean all findings). Small charts should be integrated into the text document but should always be summarized in words. Large charts could be presented in an appendix. Normally they will be summarized and presented concisely and clearly here but will not be interpreted or discussed here unless you have a good reason for combining the results section with the discussion section.

The discussion section is not just a more detailed repetition of the results section. You do not need to discuss every finding. You could start by briefly summarizing your research aims and questions and then answering your questions theme by theme in linked paragraphs based on your findings. Discussing method by method might not always be the best approach as the same theme might require you to synthesize information obtained by different methods Discussing a theme such as public "awareness" of a problem your research raises might draw on survey and interview data, for example.  Choose the most striking and relevant findings to discuss. The discussion and (conclusion) sections tend to be the sections in which repetition from previous sections occurs the most.

In your conclusions you should summarize, emphasizing only the most important findings based on key aspects from your discussion that answer your research questions and possibly suggest what further research might be needed. Recommendations could also be listed here, but they also might need justifying and ranking in terms of feasibility, importance, etc.

The writing process and developing competence

For students performing in their second language, it is sometimes argued that advanced skills of proficiency in report writing can be developed without focusing on linguistic competence. The following samples are used to illustrate the counter argument that general linguistic competence is an important factor in the perception of report writing proficiency. (This is not to exclude the possibility that first language users also need to be trained in linguistic competence.) Sample 1a (the submitted version) is presented as a relatively competent text in terms of linguistic competence. In the institutional context, it ranks as a competent text for freshman-level students.

Sample 1a – A competent text
“Finally, as an answer to the research question, we can say that the occupants in building 2 might be at risk of SBS because of poor ventilation, the locations of the vents (in the northern part of the building) and the accumulation of dust on the vents and in the ducts. On the other hand, building 3 might not be at the same level of risk like building 2, because of the less dust and dirt accumulation on the vents in building 3 and the appropriate locations of the vents. As for humidity, the records say it varies between 40-55%, which may not trouble the healthiness of both buildings in terms of SBS, according to [3].”

Sample 1a had been through a full team proofreading process. While three relatively minor linguistic errors interfere with the intelligibility of the text to a limited extent (blue script and italics), the overall perception of linguistic competence is high for freshman level students and the text also demonstrates an awareness of the need for appropriate levels of modality (interpersonal systemic function) in relation to the evidence presented in the report (red script and italics). That is not to say that the advanced level students who wrote it do not need to work on linguistic competence more to refine their content message. Teaching in this context involves using extracts from students’ first drafts in whole-class editing sessions. Sample 1b is an ‘improved’ text after one such editing session.

Sample 1b (Improved)
“Finally, as an answer to the research question, it can be argued that that there might be some degree of risk of SBS for the occupants in building 2 because of poor ventilation, the locations of the vents (in the northern part of the building) and the accumulation of dust on the vents and in the ducts. On the other hand, building 3 might not be at the same level of risk as building 2, because of the lower dust and dirt accumulation on the vents in building 3 and the appropriate locations of the vents. As for humidity, the records say it varies between 40-55%, which is unlikely to affect the healthiness of eitherbuilding in terms of SBS, according to [3].”

Even in texts such as sample 1, it is argued that improved linguistic competence, affects the perception of the competence of the content of the message. This suggests that language and content are difficult to separate. The function of modality supports this point theoretically, as the degree of confidence expressed in the evidence generated by the research project relates to the content of the message, but depends on appropriate and subtle linguistic choices.  
Sample 2a is an example of a less competent text written by students in the same freshman class. A comparison of sample 1 and sample 2 illustrates the difficulty caused by a lower level of linguistic competence. This appears to make it more difficult to evaluate the quality of the research content in sample 2.   
 
Sample 2a – A less competent text
The second type of waste is plastic waste. Plastic waste is mainly made from organic compounds from oil. The huge amounts of plastic waste are taken to a factory in Musafah to be managed. **Additionally, this helps the environment even more, because it dose not only get red of plastic waste. Furthermore, the factory also transforms the plastic waste into fertilizers. These fertilizers help the plants to absorb the nutrients from soil in which they provide. This process is working allover the PI and most of the other areas containing plants grown by man. This helps to prevent the harm of leaving the plastic waste to react and produce harmful products like gases as [1] concluded. The same process is done also to the third type of waste which is paper waste.

Having heard the students present their findings orally, and even from the evidence of the written texts alone, it can be argued that the actual research content in sample 2 is as competent as in sample 1. The main difference between them is linguistic competence, which affects the texts clarity and its coherence. For example, sample 2a has a serious problem with the textual function in the passage: 
Additionally, this helps the environment even more, because it dose not only get red of plastic waste. Furthermore, the factory also transforms the plastic waste into fertilizers. 

The message can be clarified as follows:
This helps the environment even more, because the factory not only disposes of plastic waste. It also transforms the plastic waste into fertilizers.

The linguistically ‘improved’ version of sample 2 (in sample 2b below) improves the perception of the research content. Most of the ‘improvements’ in sample 2 are only linguistic in nature, however.
 
Sample 2b – A linguistically improved version of sample 2
The second type of waste is plastic waste. Plastic waste is mainly composed of organic compounds of oil. Huge amounts of plastic waste are taken to a factory in Musafah to be managed. This helps the environment even more, because the factory not only disposes of plastic waste. It also transforms the plastic waste into fertilizer. These fertilizers help plants to absorb nutrients from the soil in which they grow. This process is in operation all over the PI and most of the other areas containing plants. This helps to prevent the harmful effects of leaving the plastic waste to react with other substances and produce harmful products like gases as [1] concluded. A similar process is used also for the third type of waste which is paper waste.

The samples used above illustrate the importance of linguistic competence in relation to research content in the PI context. They are representative examples of a very common phenomenon in that context. As these samples are taken from team-written texts that have been through a team proof-reading process, it is clear that attention to linguistic content in relation to research/scientific content is a very important issue. This is demonstrably true when the students are studying a subject like engineering in their second language in their own country.

It is also true for even the most competent students from a linguistic point of view and the perception that native or native-like language ability would eradicate this problem is also naïve given the important symbiotic relationship that can be established between language and content.  
There are no mistakes in the following example. While this is a competently written text, this extract supports the finding that modal auxiliaries tend to be overused even by competent students and that other forms could be substituted – “might be” could be replaced by “appears to be”, for example. The students’ own texts can be used to develop the following kind of exercise:

Use the following table to edit the paragraph below, using a broader range of modal expressions than the authors. Do not use any modal verbs. Make any other improvements you feel are necessary.

Ways of expressing modality – (based on Fowler, 1986, p.132)

Ways of expressing modality	Example and comment
Categorical statements (no “modal” language)	The sum of the angles of a triangle is 1800. (This does not permit doubt even to a specialist.)
Modal auxiliary verbs: may, might, should, etc.	This might mean that… (Labelled as ‘subjective’ by some specialists.)
Modal adjectives, adverbs or sentence adverbs e.g. ‘probable’, ‘probably’, ‘in all probability’ ‘possible’, ‘certain’, ‘certainly’, ‘likely’.	While it is possible that these results ... In all probability, these survey results can be relied upon as they are confirmed by previous research results in this field. (Labelled as more objective by some specialists)
Evaluative adjectives and adverbs: e.g. ‘fortunately’, ‘regrettably’, ‘inevitably’	Regrettably, the conclusions are not supported by irrefutable evidence. (Often represent value judgements)
Reporting phrases Eg. ‘claim’, ‘is reported to have said’, ‘according to …’, ‘state’, ‘argue’, ‘suggest’, ‘imply’, ‘interpret this to mean that’...	The present author interprets this result to mean that… The survey results (appear to) suggest that…’ (Can be used to distance oneself from another researcher's statement or idea, not just to report.)
Verbs of knowledge, prediction, evaluation e.g. ‘seem’, ‘guess’, ‘believe’, ‘appear’, ‘predict’, ‘approve’	It seems likely that these results were not produced by chance. These initial results appear to suggest that ... (Often seen as more objective than 'may' or 'might')
Generic statements: It is commonly stated that… It cannot be denied that… It is true that... It is clear that...	It is commonly stated that plastic waste ... (Often used to express the author's own position or to prepare for a counter argument.)

 “Finally, as an answer to the research question, we can say that the occupants in building 2 might be at risk of SBS [sick building syndrome] because of poor ventilation, the locations of the vents (in the northern part of the building) and the accumulation of dust on the vents and in the ducts. On the other hand, building 3 might not be at the same level of risk as building 2, because of the lower dust and dirt accumulation on the vents in building 3 and the appropriate locations of the vents. As for humidity, the records say it varies between 40-55%, which may not trouble the healthiness of either buildings in terms of SBS, according to [3].”

Below is a possible solution using alternative modal forms:

Finally, as an answer to the research question, [1] it can be argued that that there is some degree of risk of SBS for the occupants in building 2 because of poor ventilation, the locations of the vents (in the northern part of the building) and the accumulation of dust on the vents and in the ducts. On the other hand, building 3 does not appear to be at the same level of risk as building 2, because of the lower dust and dirt accumulation on the vents in building 3 and the appropriate locations of the vents. As for humidity, the records say it varies between 40-55%, which is unlikely to affect the healthiness of eitherbuilding in terms of SBS, according to [3].

In this context, competence is developed in a local community using a combination of global models (systemic linguistics for ‘modality’ for example) and local texts. Higher levels of competence are first evaluated in relation to what the most competent students are able to produce. The teaching then focuses on taking this to a higher level.

Conclusions
The aspects of competence taught in just two very different local contexts have been contrasted for a specific purpose. They indicate that at first sight such different competences are not part of the same conceptual framework. However, a global definition of competence leads to a different conclusion. The same core aspects of bilingual (or diglossic), linguistic, communicative, pragmatic and intercultural competences are present but in different forms and at different levels.
The main general conclusions of this study are as follows:

1. Competence is linked to the notion of ‘community’. In any local context, the competence needs of students can be related to the different communities with and within which they will need to communicate. In the first context, it was difficult to identify speech communities or discourse communities within which students would need to interact. For the general English courses in this specific context, it is proposed that basic lingua franca skills be addressed in relation to turn-taking and the negotiation of meaning to facilitate international communication. For this context, where English is taught as an international foreign language, task-based units were designed to develop competence beyond basic lingua franca skills (See Nunn, 2006 for a full description of the design of task-based units.) Increasingly universities around the globe are teaching content-based course in English and a high level of competence is required. In the PI context outlined briefly above, it can be concluded that all the various kinds of community discussed in this paper (speech community, discourse community, bilingual community, local community and international community) are potentially relevant. This has broad implications for the approach to language-related education and justifies a project-based curriculum that can act as a broad framework for the very wide variety of needs identified for PI students.

2. Basic criteria of adaptation (adapted from theoretical fields such as conversational analysis or pragmatics) to differential background knowledge can be applied to the teaching and assessment of both general and academic communication. They are also useful in providing criteria for developing critical thinking skills in relation to academic reading and writing.

3. A knowledge of genre emphasizing the purpose of different kinds of communication in context is useful as an important aspect of competence. Intercultural contexts can be seen as a genre in themselves. It is particularly important to develop a full awareness of the nature of genre rather than just an ability to reproduce genres in a formulaic way. Emphasizing the purpose of a particular assignment using meta-communication is one way of addressing this explicitly. Students need to develop the competence to be able to apply their experience and knowledge of different genres (and of the idea of genre in general) to new unpredictable genres in the future. ‘Competence’ is a resource that can be re-applied to future performances in different communities. Samples of competent writing are a useful starting point for developing genre awareness but imitating models is a poor substitute for developing the ability to improve on models and communicate creatively and originally within genres.

4. Systemic knowledge of language and communication is holistic and can never be possessed totally by any individual. Hence the importance of teamwork. Competent individuals can compensate for weakness in one area with strength in another. Assessment needs to provide opportunities for individuals to demonstrate the ability to compensate.

5. Certain aspects of holistic systemic competence such as modality and transitivity (which are themselves holistic and complex aspects of competence) can usefully be emphasized in analyzing and teaching academic communication. Analysis from research can be applied to communication courses. The ability to express appropriate levels of confidence in evidence and argumentation is an important component of academic knowledge creation and hence of academic literacy. While the theory is complex, it is possible to provide understandable summaries of the basic concepts that are accessible to students. (See Nunn in Brandt, 2008 forthcoming, in which a 3000-word summary of the systemic notion of modality based on the most complex and detailed (12,000-word) chapter of this report, chapter five, has been drafted.) Students have successfully used their understanding of epistemic modality to improve their academic communication competence, although words like ‘epistemic’ are never taught.

In any local context (here the PI in Abu Dhabi), achieving an appropriate balance between the global and the local is at the heart of any applicable characterization of EIL competence. Achieving a measure of acceptance both within local communities, and between local communities across international boundaries, remains the major challenge of this kind of research.

Competence and community - A summary
Training for EIL competence involves more than just skills and attitudes although these are important aspects. EIL competence implies an ability (not just a readiness) to interact in unpredictable multicultural contexts and the ability to adapt to a variety of communities and types of community. Some of these will be temporary multi-cultural communities, other will be monolingual and mono-cultural speech communities. Standards of competence are related to the composition of the membership of the community and are not definable in terms of ‘native’, or educated ‘native’ as members may not be native. In some mono-cultural speech communities that EIL students will need to participate in, ‘native’ or ‘near-native’ norms will still be important. Other communities may have no ‘native’ members and natives will not necessarily possess the competence to join. Relationships are likely to become increasingly symbiotic between community types and developing even partial international competence for communication within and between different kinds of community requires experience, practice and training.

Five Types of Communities

International Communities	In the singular, the ‘international community’ represents a notion of a ‘community of communities’.  However, all communities are ‘international’ to varying degrees and in different ways.
Speech Communities	Monolingual, diffuse or focused, often idealized. Permits further diversity in sub-communities.
Bilingual, Di-glossic Communities	Most users of EIL belong to bilingual communities with strong maintenance of the first language. EIL is learnt for monolingual, but multi-glossic, multi-cultural use.
Discourse Communities	Specialized professional or academic communities with membership based only on competence. They are potentially multinational with no ‘borders’.
Local Communities	Local communities in which EIL is used absorb, reject, incorporate or resist outside influence. They are international, and international use of English is always ‘local’.

Types of Competence
Five important types of competence have been identified in these two papers. It can be concluded that an international view of communicative competence is not a reduced competence. It is a broader concept than communicative competence, although both concepts include linguistic competence as an essential component. The five aspects of competence below operate simultaneously whenever language is used. 

Five Aspects of International Communicative Competence

Multiglossic	Bi- multi-lingual, di-multi-glossic. Interlocutors need to be sensitive to different identities and to be skilled in communicating their own identity intelligibly.
Strategic	In EIL communication, strategies, such as avoidance strategies, are not secondary. They are essential two-way components of intercultural communication.
Linguistic	In individuals and local communities linguistic competence in at least one variety of English is needed.
Pragmatic/Discourse	The ability to adjust language to context and to resolve differences of background knowledge is essential and requires training.
Intercultural	Intercultural competence for EIL is not based on the knowledge of one other culture for successful communication between just two cultures. It means the ability to adjust to unpredictable multicultural situations.

Five Important Characteristics of International Communicative Competence
In addition to the above, certain general characteristics of EIL competence have been identified.
Five Characteristics of ICC

Global	Holistic, interlocking, inclusive.
Partial	No individuals or local communities can possess holistic competence totally.
Compensatory	Strengths compensate for weaknesses.
Adaptive	Competence depends on adaptive ability. Strategic skills of adaptation are not optional. A locally owned variety must always be adapted for international use. Notions such as a tolerance, openmindedness, broadmindedness are all related to a notion of competence that is based on adaptive ability, not origin.
Creative	Second language users have the right and need to use English creatively.

The global holistic nature of EIL competence has important consequences for education and for issues such as geo-political ownership of English. It is a simple undeniable fact that no one culture and no individual within a culture can demonstrate more than a partial knowledge. This means that all EIL users will need to use their strengths to compensate for inevitable limitations. EIL Competence is necessarily an inclusive notion, not just for altruistic reasons, but by its very nature. Compensation for the problems created by partial knowledge is therefore an important skill that all EIL users need.

Final definitions
This discussion started by explaining why a paper on a broad and complex concept could not start with definitions. It was further suggested that ‘definitions’ are more appropriate in the form of broad characterizations. In a sense this whole paper has been defining competence for EIL, a kind of International Communicative Competence. The following definitions have evolved through discussion and research. They are intended as broad characterizations of global and local competences. The global definition is intended to be applicable across contexts and the local definition, is more specifically re-defined for the PI context discussed as just one example in this paper.

Global definition of competence

Global definition of ICC

While International Communicative Competence is too broad to define briefly the following initial approximation might stimulate further debate.  

Competence in communication is a holistic, global and international concept encompassing various interlocking components of usable knowledge and the skills and abilities needed to put these into practice within a variety of communities and types of community. The main components are pragmatic, discourse, strategic, intercultural, interpersonal and linguistic. Competence includes skills in areas related to both written and spoken language and certain adaptive skills such as the ability to negotiate meaning with people of different backgrounds. Creativity is also a characteristic of competence. The sum of these components amounts to something very large and only certain aspects of it will be called upon in any one context.

Individual competence is always partial and subject to compensation and development both for local and global use. Total competence is beyond the range of any individual, or indeed of any single community, but competent users and members of communities will compensate for weakness in one area with skill or knowledge in another. In an international sense, an ability to transfer competence acquired in one context, adapting it to a large variety of cultural contexts across discourse and speech communities is also implied together with the ability to use at least one variety of English in a manner which is intelligible to users of other varieties and which can be adjusted to the needs of intercultural communication. Users in different contexts may be at very different levels of competence and have very different needs. Certain needs are global and others local.

The implication of the above is that competence is owned only by its users and, where it is assessed, it should be, at least partially, assessed within the communities in which it is to be used. No one global standard will fit all users and communities but all competent users will have enough in common to be able to negotiate norms and interim norms in order to communicate successfully within and between particular communities and sub-communities.

Local PI definition
From this broad definition for international use, certain aspects can be expressed more specifically for the PI context.

Competence in communication in the local PI context involves various interlocking components of usable knowledge and the skills and abilities needed to put these into practice both within the local community and in preparation for communication with a variety of communities and types of community. The main components are pragmatic, discourse, strategic, intercultural, interpersonal and linguistic.

Developing competence involves developing transferable skills and creativity in areas related to both written and spoken genres. Competence implies the ability to handle general English to a high level of competence and to apply this within scientific and engineering discourse communities. Knowledge of basic systemic competences such as the ability to use appropriate modality is a transferable aspect of competence.

Total competence is beyond the range of any individual student, or indeed of any group of students within a single community, but competent students are able to demonstrate the ability to compensate for weakness in one area with skill or knowledge in another. Competent local students will have developed the ability to use at least one variety of English to a high level of competence and in a manner which is intelligible to users of other varieties. Individual competence is always partial and subject to compensation and development both for local and global use.

Competence in communication in the PI is related to global models of competence and does not exist in isolation. It is also owned by its users and can be expressed in its own terms in relation to competent performance within the institution. When it is assessed, it should be, at least partially, assessed within the community in which it is to be most immediately used. To be globally acceptable, competence expressed in local terms must also be related to competence in other comparable international contexts. For local competence to be meaningful in any global sense beyond the local community, achieving the best possible balance between global and local criteria is essential.

International Communicative Competence is linked to ownership, as all competent users have a stake-hold in the language. No community has a controlling share per se, unless politics intervene to promote one variety of English. ICC embodies an ability to adapt to different cultures, all of which represent competence differently. Attitude is also an important aspect of EIL. Powerful political groups (whether ‘native’ or ‘non-native’) may not feel the need to adapt, but the global evolution of English is likely to make such an attitude counterproductive in the long term for those who adopt it and inflexible uncooperative users may ultimately find themselves excluded from membership of important communities because they do not have the competence to participate in them. Ultimately, ICC is a value-driven concept: an open- and broad-minded, tolerant approach is intimately related to the kind of adaptation that is required to put it to use.  

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