Benchmarking video presentations for CEFR usage in Cuba

Abstract

This paper discusses language assessment by means of video recordings, particularly its use for benchmarking purposes regarding language proficiency in a Cuban academic context. It is based on videotaped oral presentation assignments of Cuban PhD students for peer and teacher assessment. In order to avoid bias and provide validity to the results, the PhD students’ videotaped oral presentation assignments have been rated by language testing experts from three different Flemish universities, which are included in the Interuniversity Testing Consortium (IUTC). A selection of these assignments will be transferred to the university Moodle platform, and this compilation may be used to enable the start of a Cuban corpus of internationally rated presentations of academic English. Therefore, the results obtained will provide language teachers with a growing database of video recordings to facilitate benchmarking activities and promote standardized assessment in the Cuban academic context.