Chose your words!
In simple terms, a speaker who uses basic grammar and limited vocabulary but makes no errors should still receive a lower score than a speaker who makes some errors but consistently demonstrates richer, more advanced language.
The words you choose when you speak matter. Each individual is essentially a language model of the grammatical structures, word combinations, connectives, and lexical range that they use. To assess their proficiency we assess all of these attributes through hundreds of features based on the language use.
Today we are announcing 21 new feedback metrics which provide greater insight into Grammar, Vocabulary, and Coherence scores. These metrics provide score explainability and identify specific areas of weakness for practice and improvement.
Anatomy of a feedback metric
Each feedback metric was chosen to measure a dimension of the speaker’s language and reflect how they compare to other non-native speakers in that dimension alone. It is important to note that is it not necessary, and nearly impossible, to score high on every metric all the time.
Each metrics has 3 components:
- Score: On a scale of 0 to 10
- Level: Low, Mid, or High
- Message: A feedback message to the learner
Learners should typically work on areas where their level is low, which coincides with scores below 4. Let’s look at a few real examples.
1. Here is an example result from the vocab.overall_metrics.idiomaticity metric: