Defining the Indicator System for AWE for Portuguese Classes in Chinese Higher Education

Automatic writing evaluation systems can provide language learners with instant feedback and suggestions on written texts, a useful tool that can benefit their writing abilities and skills. However, the development of such a system for Chinese university students of Portuguese remains an issue to be explored. The present study combines the Delphi method and the Analytic Hierarchy Process to establish an indicator system for the development of an automated writing evaluation system for Portuguese classes in higher education, with the weight of each metric being specified and analyzed. The system consists of five first-level indicators and thirteen second-level indicators. The primary indicators and their respective weights are "Content" (36.5%), "Mechanics" (21.6%), "Language use" (20.1%), "Vocabulary" (16.3%) and "Organization" (5.5%). With regard to the secondary indicators, the main concerns of the evaluators are "Relevance", "Readability" and "Spelling". The system of indicators defined in this research constitutes an important basis on which automated writing evaluation applications and software for texts written in Portuguese can be built, which is suitable for the reality in which the number of Chinese university students studying Portuguese is growing rapidly and they can improve their capabilities in Portuguese writing with the help of such applications and software.