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If you’re in the language assessment space, you’ve probably heard of scoring scales like CEFR, ACTFL, TOEFL, and more. Scoring is a vital part of any language testing solution, so it’s good to know your scoring scales and how they’re serving you (or not serving you) as you assess test-takers’ language skills. 

At Emmersion, our vision for our work is to close the global communication gap. We do this by enhancing, credentialing, and supporting the learning of languages. However, we do not believe the burden to close this gap falls solely on language-learners. Native and mastery-level users of a language also have a responsibility to create language communities that are open and accommodating to language-learners.

While we are proud of our accomplishments towards automated speaking assessment solutions and claim many first ascents in this area of language testing, we also recognize that other solutions are out there that use similar tools to our automated assessments. You might wonder what we think about these competitors. To be honest, we welcome the company! Being a Team Player is a part of our culture. It’s validating to see the work that others are doing that aligns with our own. 

The team I’m part of recently did the first of a series of training sessions that focus on Emmersion fundamentals—key features and processes that help anyone better understand the important work we do. If you have been a regular reader, you will hopefully recognize some overlap between what is discussed here and what we have discussed earlier.

I am on the plane home from a huge personal accomplishment. I am returning to the US having just visited Egypt and my 7th continent of the world (yes, that includes Antarctica). While I have visited some of the most amazing parts of the world, I know I still have much to see. Through my travels, I have enjoyed some of the most impressive natural wonders, man made structures, and passionate individuals. 

When I consider an enterprise software solution, I like to match up the features from each consideration. Sometimes I learn about important features that weren’t originally in my consideration set. Once I have a solid understanding of what I am looking for, I proceed to evaluate firms with the options that I need and eliminate firms that are not capable of delivering on my needs.

One of our core Emmersion culture values is to be a Truth Seeker. In practice, truth seeking relates to our desire to be thorough and rigorous in the development of products that work. It also manifests itself in how we talk about why we do what we do.

This week’s post will be a little self indulgent. I hate the “sorry not sorry” card but I’m going to play it anyway. The Emmersion team crossed an important milestone a couple weeks ago as we leveled up our automated English speaking assessment, and it became the FIRST-ever, fully adaptive automated speaking assessment. It has been a great privilege to work with the brilliant minds that have made this vision a reality, and it is a credit to the persistence of the visionary who carried the seeds, tilled the soil, and nurtured it to fruition. You can hear from the brains behind it all, Dr. Jacob Burdis, here.

Inability to staff appropriately with the right language skills and in a timely fashion results in loss of business. Losing good talent because of lack of management support and inability to communicate in the employees’ language costs a company in the long run.