This paper compares the speaking scores generated by two online systems that are designed to automatically grade student speech and provide personalized speaking feedback in an EFL context. The first system, "Speech Assessment for Moodle" ("SAM"), is an open-source solution developed by the author that makes use of Google's…

Human raters and machine scoring systems potentially have complementary strengths in evaluating language ability; specifically, it has been suggested that automated systems might be used to make consistent measurements of specific linguistic phenomena, whilst humans evaluate more global aspects of performance. We report on an empirical study that…

As validity pertains to test use rather than the test itself, using a test for unintended purposes requires a new validation program using additional evidence from relevant sources. This small-scale study contributes to the validation of the use of originally academic language tests--the International English Language Testing System and the Test…