Big Picture: How the 4 Competencies Connect

Big Picture: How the 4 Competencies Connect

Before you dive into the individual competencies, take a few minutes to see how they fit together. The TExES 164 Bilingual Education Supplemental exam is not four separate tests stitched into one. It is a single, coherent body of professional knowledge about Emergent Bilinguals, organized into four competencies that build on each other. When you understand that structure, every study guide that follows will feel less like a stack of facts and more like a map you already know how to read. This topic gives you that map.

The Exam at a Glance

Pearson organizes the TExES 164 under a single domain called Bilingual Education, which accounts for 100% of the exam. Inside that single-domain framework live four weighted competencies. Together they produce 80 selected-response items administered in 300 minutes, with a scaled-score cutoff of 240 to pass.

• Competency 1: Foundations of Bilingual Education: approximately 30% of the exam, around 24 questions, organized around 10 knowledge statements (1-A through 1-J).
• Competency 2: First- and Second-Language Acquisition: approximately 25% of the exam, around 20 questions, organized around 7 knowledge statements (2-A through 2-G).
• Competency 3: Literacy Development in L1 and Biliteracy: approximately 25% of the exam, around 20 questions, organized around 7 knowledge statements (3-A through 3-G).
• Competency 4: Content-Area Instruction in L1 and L2: approximately 20% of the exam, around 16 questions, organized around 5 knowledge statements (4-A through 4-E).

Notice that the four weights add to 100% within the one Bilingual Education domain. There are no separate domain scores reported in the way some older TExES exams worked. Your scaled score reflects performance across the integrated body of bilingual education professional knowledge.

How the Competencies Build on Each Other

The four competencies are sequenced for a reason. They move from what bilingual education is, to how language is learned, to how that learning becomes literacy, to how literacy carries into every subject area.

Competency 1 is the foundation. It answers the question, What is bilingual education and why does Texas do it this way? Here you study the historical progression from English-only restriction to legal protection, the landmark court cases (Lau v. Nichols, Castañeda v. Pickard), the federal and state statutes (Title VII, Chapter 89), the identification and placement procedures (HLS, TELPAS, ELPS, LPAC), the major program models (dual language one-way and two-way, transitional early-exit and late-exit, sheltered English immersion), and the convergent research (Ramirez, Thomas & Collier, Cummins, Krashen) that supports an additive, asset-based approach. Everything you study later sits on top of this foundation.

Competency 2 layers in the theory of language. It answers the question, How do students actually learn languages, including their first and additional languages? Here you study the six components of language (phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics), the stages of L1 and L2 acquisition, the major theoretical frameworks (behaviorist, nativist, cognitive, social interactionist, and Krashen’s five hypotheses), the relationship between L1 and L2 (transfer, cognates, code-switching, translanguaging, contrastive analysis), and the ESL methodologies that flow from those theories. This is the linguistic engine that drives every instructional decision in the next two competencies.

Competency 3 applies the theory to literacy. It answers the question, How does literacy develop in two languages, and how do I support it? Here you study the stages of L1 literacy development (emergent, early, transitional, fluent), the distinction between phonological and phonemic awareness, formal and informal literacy assessments in both languages (including running records and portfolios), the Texas reading and language arts standards along with the Spanish TEKS, cross-linguistic literacy transfer, and the specific strategies that promote biliteracy. Biliteracy does not happen automatically; it has to be planned for.

Competency 4 extends biliteracy into every content area. It answers the question, How do I teach math, science, and social studies in two languages without watering down the content? Here you study assessment of Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) in content areas, the four instructional approaches that flow from assessment data (linguistically accommodated, sequenced, scaffolded, integrated), how to write paired content and language objectives for any lesson, sheltered English strategies for content delivery, and differentiation by proficiency level. Competency 4 is where everything you have learned in Competencies 1 through 3 finally meets the math lesson, the science investigation, and the social studies discussion.

Read in this order, the four competencies form a single argument: bilingual education exists for documented historical and legal reasons (Comp 1), it works because of the way human beings acquire language (Comp 2), that acquisition becomes literacy through intentional biliterate instruction (Comp 3), and that literacy then becomes the access route to all academic content (Comp 4).

Knowledge-Statement Map

The table below summarizes how the four competencies map to the exam, including the central question each one is built to answer. Use it as your one-page mental anchor.

5 Big Ideas That Cut Across All 4 Competencies

If you remember nothing else from this overview, remember these five cross-cutting ideas. They appear in question after question, sometimes in Competency 1, sometimes in Competency 4, but always with the same underlying logic.

• Additive bilingualism is the goal. Effective bilingual programs add a second language while strengthening and maintaining the first. Subtractive approaches that replace L1 with L2 are linked to language loss, weaker academic outcomes, and damage to identity. Whenever a question asks you to evaluate a program design, a parent conversation, or a teacher decision, the additive frame is the right frame.
• BICS is not CALP. Cummins distinguished Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (the social fluency that develops in roughly 1 to 2 years) from Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (the academic register that takes roughly 5 to 7 years to develop). Exiting students from bilingual services based on conversational fluency alone is a classic test trap and a classic classroom mistake.
• Comprehensible input drives acquisition. Krashen’s Input Hypothesis (i+1) tells you that students acquire language when they receive input slightly above their current proficiency, made understandable through context, visuals, gestures, and scaffolds. This principle applies in Competency 2 (theory), Competency 3 (reading instruction), and Competency 4 (content delivery).
• Scaffolded instruction is temporary by design. Effective scaffolds (graphic organizers, sentence stems, native-language preview, visual supports, paired discussion) provide maximum support initially and are systematically removed as students demonstrate readiness. Scaffolding is not “easier work”; it is the same rigorous work made accessible.
• Bilingualism is an asset, never a deficit. Students’ home languages, cultural knowledge, and prior schooling are resources for new learning, not obstacles. Cross-linguistic transfer, cognates, translanguaging, and culturally responsive teaching all flow from this asset-based stance. Any answer choice that frames Emergent Bilinguals through a deficit lens is almost always wrong on this exam.

How to Allocate Your Study Time

Use the exam weights to guide your study schedule, but adjust for how concept-heavy or application-heavy each competency is.

• Competencies 1 and 2 together account for about 55% of the exam. These are concept-heavy and memorization-heavy. Plan to spend more time on flashcards, comparison tables, and recall practice here. Court cases, statutes, LPAC procedures, program models, language components, acquisition stages, and theoretical frameworks all reward direct memorization.
• Competencies 3 and 4 together account for about 45% of the exam. These are application-heavy. Plan to spend more time on scenario-based practice questions, analyzing classroom vignettes, evaluating lesson plans, and writing paired content and language objectives. You can know every literacy stage in theory and still miss a question if you cannot match the right instructional move to the right student profile.
• Reserve 10 to 15% of your study time for cross-competency review. The hardest exam questions blend Comp 2 theory with Comp 3 literacy or Comp 1 program model with Comp 4 content-area decisions. Practice synthesizing across competencies, not just within them.

Key Names and Frameworks to Master

Across the four competencies, a recurring cast of researchers, court cases, statutes, and frameworks shows up again and again. Walk into the exam knowing these by name and you have already secured several points.

• Court cases: Lau v. Nichols (1974, established that identical instruction does not equal equal educational opportunity for English learners); Castañeda v. Pickard (1981, established the three-part test for evaluating language programs, sound theory, adequate resources, evaluation of results).
• Federal and state law: Bilingual Education Act / Title VII (1968); Texas Education Code Chapter 89, Subchapter BB (state requirements for bilingual and ESL programs); Equal Educational Opportunities Act (1974).
• Texas systems and procedures: Home Language Survey (HLS); Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS); English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS); Language Proficiency Assessment Committee (LPAC) and its 5-role membership; Spanish TEKS for biliteracy instruction.
• Researchers and their core contributions: Jim Cummins (Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis, BICS/CALP distinction, Common Underlying Proficiency); Stephen Krashen (five hypotheses: Acquisition-Learning, Input/i+1, Natural Order, Monitor, Affective Filter); Wayne Thomas and Virginia Collier (long-term effectiveness study identifying two-way dual language as the strongest model); J. David Ramirez (1992 longitudinal comparison showing late-exit and maintenance bilingual programs outperform early-exit transitional); Lev Vygotsky (Zone of Proximal Development and social-interactionist learning); Noam Chomsky (Language Acquisition Device, nativist framework).
• Models and methodologies: Dual language (one-way and two-way), transitional bilingual (early-exit and late-exit), Sheltered English Immersion, content-based ESL, pull-out and push-in ESL, sheltered instruction strategies, reciprocal teaching (predicting, questioning, clarifying, summarizing).

You do not need to recite every detail of every researcher’s career. You do need to recognize the name, match it to the right contribution, and apply that contribution to a classroom scenario. The study guides that follow this topic will reinforce each of these connections in context. For now, you have the map. Let’s begin.