CEFR Labelling and Assessment Services

Abstract

Our pilot project aims to develop a set of text collections and annotation tools to facilitate the creation of datasets (corpora) for the development of AI classification models. These classification models can automatically assess a text’s reading difficulty on the levels described by the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). The ability to accurately and consistently assess the readability level of texts is crucial to authors and (language) teachers. It allows them to more easily create and discover content that meets the needs of students with different backgrounds and skill levels. Also, in the public sector using plain language in written communication is becoming increasingly important to ensure citizens can easily access and comprehend government information. EDIA already provides automated readability assessment services (available as APIs and an online authoring tool) for the CEFR in English. Support for Dutch, German and Spanish are added as part of this project. Using the infrastructure developed in this project the effort for creating high quality datasets for additional languages is lowered significantly. The tools and datasets are deployed through the European Language Grid. The project is scheduled to be completed in the second quarter of 2022.