Pencil and paper English proficiency exams measure reading, writing and listening abilities, but neglect the fourth and possibly the most important ability in a western classroom — speaking.To fill this gap, Vericant’s verified video interviews were developed to help admission officers better understand their applicant’s Spoken English ability and non-cognitive skills.  The only problem was evaluations were subjective and applicants received little feedback on their abilities.

With the SEE, admission officers now have a standardized measurement of applicant’s spoken English abilities and applicants receive feedback on their Spoken English Ability.

Vericant’s SEE score reflects an interviewee’s spoken English ability as assessed analytically across five categories: Vocabulary Range, Grammatical Accuracy, Fluency, Conversational Interaction, and Coherence. Scoring is completed by two individual raters extensively trained on the SEE Detailed Rubric. Final SEE Scores are provided to both institutions and applicants to an accuracy of one decimal point (i.e. 4.3 or 2.2).

The SEE ranges from Levels 1-6, with Level 1 reflecting an extremely limited conversational exchange, and Level 6 reflecting the skillful conversational ability of a well-spoken, highly-educated individual.

The SEE is developed from the Common European Framework of References for Languages (CEFR), a globally recognized framework of references that serves as the basis of most language tests, including TOEFL and IELTS exams.

Unlike TOEFL and IELTS, the SEE was not developed with the specific purposes of assessing the proficiency of academic English. The SEE is an evaluation of spoken English communication expressed during Vericant’s behavioral interview setting.

There is no reading, writing, or listening component to the Spoken English Evaluation.

Never. A student’s language ability is never assessed on the spot by his or her interviewer. We do this to eliminate “interviewer bias,” where the interview process may consciously or unconsciously affect an interviewer’s opinion. Our professionally trained examiners are the only ones who rate interviews, maintaining an objective evaluation process.

Examiners undergo intensive SEE rubric training during which the scoring process is thoroughly reviewed and calibrated. Examiners are given periodic re-calibrations to the SEE rubric, and if they’re not able to score inline with our master rating, are excused from examining until they’ve passed retraining.