Unlike other English-language tests that use AI machines to assess your speaking skills, your IELTS Speaking test is completed in a quiet room with a qualified IELTS examiner. Find out why a face-to-face Speaking test is unbiased and what you should expect on test day.
While English language tests with AI marking are often promoted as being unbiased, researchers from MIT have recently found that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can still be biased. So, what does it mean when an AI machine is testing your English language abilities?
When an AI machine is being trained through deep learning, bias can occur. The machine learns from the data it is fed. If this data mostly contains spoken samples from European candidates, then the AI machine will find it harder to recognise spoken English from Indian, Chinese or even native English speakers.
The MIT research also found that bias can be introduced in the data preparation stage – when algorithms are identified within a language sequence or the areas the AI machine will need to focus on to mark your English-speaking abilities. This may affect your score if you use local lingo, jokes or slang, or if you pause for a period within the Speaking test.
Human examiners, on the other hand, can understand different accents and tell the difference between a pause for thought and a pause of confusion. A human examiner has been specially trained to consider the social context. They know and understand the appropriate use of words, sentence structures and the like. And human examiners can easily prompt you if you get stuck at any point within your Speaking test.
The IELTS Speaking test is done face-to-face with a real, human examiner. This way you can rest assured that there won’t be any AI machine bias when sitting your Speaking test. The Speaking part takes between 11 and 14 minutes to complete with an IELTS examiner.
