IATEFL TEASIG – Automated Assessment of L2 Learners’ Written Production: Can AI Make a Difference?

Name: IATEFL TEASIG – Automated Assessment of L2 Learners’ Written Production: Can AI Make a Difference?
Start: 2026-01-07T00:00:00-07:00
End: 2026-01-07T23:59:59-07:00
Location: Virtual event

The development of writing skills constitutes a core component of second language education, yet the assessment of learners’ written production remains a persistent challenge. Providing reliable scores and informative feedback is both time-intensive for teachers and problematic in terms of consistency in high-stakes examinations. Over the past decades, automated assessment systems have sought to address these issues. They were driven by advances in natural language processing and artificial intelligence. However, until recently such systems could only be developed by highly specialised teams for narrowly defined tasks, limiting their adaptability and accessibility for classroom use. The recent emergence of Generative AI and chatbots marks a turning point, offering accessible tools for automated assessment and feedback. This talk reviews the evolution of automated systems for L2 writing evaluation, examines the opportunities afforded by GenAI-based chatbots, and presents recent empirical findings on their effectiveness and pedagogical implications.

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