Language assessment using AI: Lingueo unveils its first E-LATE brick with Luc Julia

The first floor of the Café de Flore was crowded Monday evening (November 18, 2024) for the afterwork Lingueo who launched theE-LATEpresented as the first language assessment test by AI.

Surprisingly, the start-up, a French pioneer in videoconferencing language teaching, welcomed a renowned expert in the AI ​​sphere during this small convention organized in the renowned Parisian brasserie on Boulevard Saint-Germain:

Luc JuliaFrench engineer and computer scientist specializing in AI and co-creator of the Siri voice assistant that Apple iPhone owners know well.

We will understand the reasons for his presence later.

E-LATE by Lingueo: “A tailor-made assessment experience”

Certification editor LATES (for LIVE LANGUAGE TEST, an aptitude test for working in a foreign language) and certifier since 2017, Lingueo presented what it calls a technological leap with the E-LATE (for “Linguistic Assessment Assisted by Language Technology). AI”).

“This project was initiated in 2023. It is the first brick in our entry into the AI ​​era,” announces Guillaume le Dieu de Ville, co-founder of Lingueo.

Here is the starting point for the development of E-LATE to transform training through AI: how to map the linguistic skills of each employee in a company?

The E-LATE is presented as the first language positioning test designed to meet the specific needs of professionals.

It makes it possible to create and evaluate a relationship between an individual’s operational linguistic skills and their profession to better manage company training policy.

Available in 12 languages* for its start, the assessment lasts 30 minutes and covers 4 dimensions: written and oral comprehension, written and oral expression.

The levels of difficulty adapt according to the candidate’s answers and the professional situations.

“For the pilot, we are focusing on the first 6 languages,” specifies Guillaume le Dieu de Ville. 7 Lingueo clients find themselves in the E-LATE loop as it stands.

*The 12 languages ​​of E-LATE by Lingueo: English, Italian, Spanish, German, Portuguese/Brazilian Portuguese, French, Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean.

E-LATE available for customers and partners

The cost of access to E-LATE is intended to be “affordable”: less than 50 euros per test but decreasing with the volume.

“There are no other fees. For businesses, there is also the provision of the platform for mapping, analysis and management and personalization as well as decision support tools for recruitment and training,” assures Guillaume le Dieu. of City.

Lingueo is also thinking of its network of 300 LILATE partners, who will have the same functionalities as businesses.

“In addition, for each purchase of LILATE an E-LATE will be attached allowing the candidate to position themselves at the start of the course,” specifies the manager.

Behind E-LATE, an “agnostic AI engine”

E-LATE, which is based on the LILATE framework, is also in line with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages ​​(CEFR) but the approach has been updated.

“There was a need: in languages, there are standards like the CEFR which mean nothing. It’s too broad, too illegible and it’s not operational for a recruiter based on their business issues,” says Arnaud Portanelli, the second founder of Lingueo.

“It also lacked a glaring degree of granularity. We looked at everything that was on the market. It was like painting with a big roller rather than a thin brush. The technologies currently used did not allow this. This is why we started working on our own AI engine,” explains Guillaume le Dieu de Ville.

E-LATE is supposed to respond to all these shortcomings by relying on the acceleration of progress observed in AI (or rather AI if we refer to the famous educational work by Luc Julia published in 2019: “ Artificial intelligence does not exist.”

“Our AI engine was designed from an agnostic perspective. We use different bases for each modality (audio, written, etc.) and for each task (generation, analysis, etc.): SLM and LLM in open source or proprietary mode from OpenAI, Mistral AI and others,” explains Guillaume. the City God.

Next step planned in this exploration of AI by Lingueo: the recommendation of personalized training courses.

Luc Julia and Lingueo: the mysterious link revealed

Little flashback during the evening at Café de Flore.

Co-founder and VP R&D of BravoBrava, named after a technology incubator located in Silicon Valley (period 2000-2010), Luc Julia regularly welcomed new recruits to his Palo Alto labs, including French interns.

Like…Guillaume le Dieu de Ville and Arnaud Portanelli.

• “When I hired these 2 guys between 2004 and 2005, they were definitely the most creative interns. However, I have known hundreds of others.
• We worked on speech recognition software [SpeakESL] for computer intended to improve the reading quality of children. Depending on how well a child read a text aloud, they had a basic, color-coded assessment.
• It was a revolution: the software listened and the system looked intelligent. It was already AI back then. I was already getting drunk with that, even though she was completely stupid,” recalls Luc Julia, holding a plush SpeakESL mascot in the form of an owl handed into his hands in the Café de Flore.

Twenty years later, the trio reformed for this Parisian evening.

Guillaume le Dieu de Ville and Arnaud Portanelli, who wore pseudo-Hawaiian shirts for the occasion (Luc Julia’s dress code), also remember their time in Silicon Valley, with archive photos to back it up. “At the time, we were working on a lot of projects, particularly on human-machine interfaces. »

There remains a mystery to unravel: what is the link between Luc Julia and Lingueo news around E-LATE?

• “A little less than a year ago, Luc and I met again to talk about Lingueo’s strategy and our arrival in AI.
• He agreed to chair our strategic committee and challenge us on the innovation roadmap,” reveals Guillaume le Dieu de Ville.