Competence and Performance

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? | Separate from actual performance - what he or she does while producing or comprehending language. In other words, competence is put to use through performance. | 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. | 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. | Knowing the Highway Code is not the same as driving.