One of ZenGengo's primary missions is to make language teachers' jobs both quicker and easier. However, we aim to do this without sacrificing the academic rigor that is required when teaching and learning languages.
With our audio and video recording assignment types, we offer the option for teachers to require students to provide a transcript their spoken responses. This self-transcription has a pedagogical value, as it allows students to dual process their output in both spoken and written form.
In addition to the added pedagogical value, the self-generated transcript also makes teachers lives much easier by allowing them to read students spoken output at the same time as listening to it.
Furthermore, a grade can be automatically assigned to the written transcript of the spoken output using a very simple algorithm. The same algorithm can also be applied to written responses using the Written Report assignment type.
This grade allows teachers to get a basic thumbnail sketch of students overall written or spoken productive ability without aiming or claiming to completely replace teachers' own assessment of such output.
To activate auto-grading on open written and spoken responses, simply switch Manual Transcript on, and set a Target Word Count:
The percentage score for the written or spoken output is then calculated as follows:
Where a "recognized word" is a word appearing in the dictionary for the target language (either English, Spanish, German, or French).
When a transcript has been enabled and a target word count has been set, scores for open spoken and written responses can be downloaded in the same way as other ZenGengo assignment types.