A web-based system for automatic language skill assessment

EVALING is a Leonardo da Vinci project funded by the European Union, involving four European laboratories. The aim of the project is to build an automatic system to evaluate language skills in people's native language. This paper focuses on native French. Other partners are working on their own language and are building specific tests (Italian and German). EVALING is an 'Item Banking' system: exercise database allowing dynamic design of questionnaires. We present a technique based on the use of NPL tools that assure easy and costless updating of these databases. In addition, we underline the interest of Local Grammars (Finite State Transducers) for scoring exercises on language.