What we create
ELiT exploits advances in computational linguistics and machine learning, with patented technology, to provide a range of automated assessment tools to support learners of English. These will cover the four skills; writing, speaking, reading and listening.
Our tools
ELiT creates a range of tools to support students learning English as a second language, anywhere in the world and which are accessed via desktop, laptop, tablet and mobile for learners either for homework or self-study or in a classroom setting. The features of these tools include:
Automated assessment of English writing and, as future developments, speaking, reading and listening
Choice of tasks from a calibrated library of beginner, intermediate and advanced tasks within specific frameworks
Creation and sharing of workbooks with a group of students using bespoke tasks or those from the library
Scoring of the level of that work against internationally recognised language assessment scales eg CEFR or specific examination frameworks as appropriate
Feedback which reports and tracks their efforts and achievements
Diagnostic information for the language learner which identifies and highlights the common mistakes that they are making
Support to understand the mistakes and what they can do to improve
Motivational feedback and awards to encourage the learner to continue to practise and improve
The delivery channel is currently Writeandimprove.com, which is supported by digital marketing across Cambridge Assessment English’s and Cambridge University Press’s international platforms; linking it irrevocably to a language learning environment.
The Improve range of products
The Improve range of products are backed by research and development in conjunction with our partners, Cambridge University through Cambridge Assessment English, Cambridge University Press, the ALTA Institute and iLexIR.
The Write & Improve assessment feedback and support is tailored to each specific learner and was informed initially by the 30 million words of error-annotated learner writing from the Cambridge Learner Corpus but has, since then, received and analysed nearly 2 million more learner essays from its users, many of which have also been annotated for learner errors by EFL teachers. This means that learners can be sure that the feedback they receive will help them to learn about the common mistakes they make and to revise their writing to produce more natural and accurate English
Key Research
One of the key research papers is Andersen, O., H. Yannakoudakis, F. Barker and T. Parish, ‘Developing and trialling a self-assessment and tutoring system’, Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications, NAACL-HLT 2013 Workshops, Atlanta, Georgia, June, 2013.
Watch Professor Ted Briscoe talking about automated assessment and Write & Improve at the 2017 IATEFL conference.
Coming Soon
Our next project is Read & Improve, which is in beta test for data gathering now and will be released as a beta development tool in 2018. Contact us to find out more or to get involved in the research project data gathering.