AI teaches spoken English in Taiwan
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Taiwan education ministry adds AI to English speaking test:
New system gives students instant feedback on spoken English
Lai Jyun-tang, Taiwan News | Feb. 3, 2026
Is this a first in the whole world? Or is it already common in many countries?
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan’s education ministry has added artificial intelligence to its English speaking assessment system to help students better learn and practice spoken English.
Liberty Times reported Monday that the upgraded system uses artificial intelligence to score pronunciation and analyze spoken answers in real time. Education officials said the move supports Taiwan’s 2030 bilingual policy by placing greater emphasis on practical communication skills.
Tsai I-ching (蔡宜靜), a division chief at the ministry’s K-12 Education Administration, said the system is free for students from elementary school to university and covers listening, speaking, reading, and writing. She said the new speaking tasks include open-ended questions and information-based responses to mirror real-life situations and international test formats.
The system evaluates pronunciation accuracy, fluency, rhythm, vocabulary use, grammar, and how well responses match the question, according to the education ministry. After each test, students receive instant, personalized feedback and learning suggestions, the ministry said.
At Changhua County’s Shengang Junior High School, students use the system to practice speaking beyond textbook exercises and gain a clearer understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. Teachers also guide students to use the feedback to refine pronunciation and sentence structure.
In Keelung City, Cheng Kung Junior High School applies the test results to build a learning cycle that links assessment, feedback, and improvement. The approach has helped boost student motivation and engagement, per CNA.
Selected readings
- "Artificial Intelligence in Language Education: with a note on GPT-3" (2/4/23)
- "AI panics" (11/27/16)
- "English as a prestige language in Taiwan" (11/29/20)
- "English as an official language in Taiwan" (12/8/18)
- Ralph Jennings, "Isolation-wary, Chinese-speaking Taiwan moves to make English an official language", Los Angeles Times (10/15/18)
Jarek Weckwerth said,
February 10, 2026 @ 4:38 am
Automated spoken English testing has been around for quite some time already. I don't know if it has been done at this (official/ministerial) level, but it's quite common, especially in Asian contexts. So far, the approach has been rather crude in that you simply do ASR and see if the result makes sense and is grammatical in English. The wet dream of "communicative" teaching approaches: If you get your meaning across, you're good. Fine-grained testing of pronunciation (as in "accent detection/reduction") is probably fake at this stage, even though efforts are being made in that direction. At least last week when I tested ChatGPT and Gemini on accent stuff using audio, ChatGPT couldn't do it and Gemini cheated.
For general spoken English testing, you can probably inspect these quick results (I haven't had a detailed look but looking at the headings that's exactly what it is):
Google search
Philip Taylor said,
February 10, 2026 @ 6:47 am
Only partially on-topic, but I think sufficiently relevant for it to be permitted as a follow-up :
How would readers of this forum (especially those with TEFL / TESOL experience) recommend that my Vietnamese brother-in-law acquire fluency in spoken, and competence in written, English ? He is now resident in the U.K., speaks almost no English whatsoever, and the local council are not offering TESOL classes for complete beginners ?