Review of EAP Talk

2.1 Reading aloud

The Reading Aloud section provides users with a range of academic texts of varying levels, from A1 single-sentence reading to C2 paragraph reading, which allows students to progress gradually. Meanwhile, users can also select exercises relevant to the specialisation under the secondary heading (see Figure 1).

Figure 1:

EAP Talk – Reading aloud overview.

As seen in Figure 2, users can select a question, click the “Example” button to listen to the standard recording of native English speakers, imitate and practice and then click “Start” to work on the exercises.

Figure 2:

EAP Talk – Reading aloud question.

EAP Talk performs well in providing timely feedback (see Figure 3). The Reading Aloud assessment scores out of 100 points depending on one’s fluency, pronunciation and integrity. Based on the user’s performance, distinct colours of the text are set, with “yellow” sections representing “fully proficient” “grey” ones as “distinction” “green” as “merit” “blue” as “pass” and “purple” as “fail”. Students can adjust their pronunciation based on feedback and click on the red button “Try again” to re-record for a higher score.

Figure 3:

EAP Talk – Reading aloud feedback.

2.2 Presentation

The Presentation section of the EAP Talk is particularly captivating. Initially, the content is categorized into three levels, including life topics (Level A1), societal issues (Level B1) and academic questions (Level C1). Questions are also marked as Explain, Argue, Suggest, Describe, etc. (see Figure 4).

Figure 4:

EAP Talk – Presentation overview.

Furthermore, presentation questions are mostly asked by various avatar teachers with the appearance of Western native English speakers, enabling simulation of a real-time speaking examination for students. It is noteworthy that in addition to those of native English-speaking countries such as the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand, the avatars’ accents are also diverse, with Spanish, Indian and Chinese English accents. The pattern of questioning also differs between the different levels of questions; for instance, the level A1 and B1 questions have subtitles, whereas the level C1 questions do not have. After recording, detailed and comprehensive speech-to-text results and score feedback is provided promptly.

Figure 5 shows EAP Talk’s multi-dimensional feedback with corresponding International English Language Testing System (IELTS) scoring criteria, including fluency and coherence, grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary range. The IELTS speaking score is also automatically converted to the corresponding speaking score on other comparable English examinations, including the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE), etc. Similar to Reading Aloud, the system conducts a comprehensive analysis of the speech-to-text results in which the words in the presentation transcript are ranked based on their complexity, with advanced words highlighted in yellow and ordinary words in black. Meanwhile, words with the wrong pronunciation and grammatical mistakes are marked in red. In addition, the system is capable of calculating the student’s speech rate, expressed in terms of the number of words per minute.

Figure 5:

EAP Talk – Presentation feedback.

2.3 Word

The vocabulary pages contain around 8,400 words, including a large number of specialist and academic words. Users can click on the target word to check the pronunciation, Chinese meaning and phonetic symbols. They can also check the “Example” to listen to a standard recording and then make a recording.

In terms of feedback, EAP Talk can provide a score and different coloured phonetic symbols representing various performances in terms of pronunciation. The stressed phonetic symbols of the recording are set in bold so that a student’s pronunciation can be assessed against the standard one (see Figure 6). Hence, students can visually discern the accuracy of their stress by this comparison.

Figure 6:

EAP Talk – Word feedback.

2.4 Test mode

EAP Talk offers the Test module in the Reading Aloud and Presentation parts (see Figures 1 and 4). Under this module, no example recordings or answers to the questions are provided, allowing teachers to choose appropriate questions in the classroom for students to complete speaking tests and receive feedback on time. Teachers can also use the teacher’s management system to download students’ scores on this online test as a record or pre- and post-test results.

2.5 Teaching management system

In addition to assessing speaking ability, the system furnishes a user-friendly teaching management system. Teachers who desire to utilise the system as an administrator for AI-assisted instruction and class monitoring may do so by submitting a request email to the EAP Talk administrator, which is currently free of charge. After creating a class, teachers can add students to the class and see individual information within the management system. Upon selecting the relevant student, teachers have the option to access further information by clicking on the ‘Details’ button that provides students’ detailed scores for each question they have completed as well as the time of the test. The “Export Marks” function can obtain grades of whole class in Excel spreadsheets which can be imported into quantitative data coding software for further processing, for example analysing students’ pre- and post-test scores in Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) software. The individual dimensions of the score can be utilised as research subjects, which is highly advantageous for empirical investigation and research on computer-assisted language learning (CALL).