Introduction

So my name is Rahel Gunaratne, and I'm presenting an application called Fluent Future. And so it is a language learning application for newcomers to Canada.

And before we get started, I just want to thank MindStone for organizing this event, and also to Akshay for introducing me to them, and also for setting this up.

Background of Fluent Future

And I want to also give a bit of backstory about Fluent Future and why we're making a language learning application. So it all started a few months ago when I met my co-founder, Gouled Saliban.

And he and I have a lot of immigrant friends who are moving to Canada. And we noticed that there are a lot of issues they face when they came to Canada, such as language learning and also the job industry.

So we thought we could find a way to address these issues.

Challenges for Newcomers

So one of the public resources that are available for newcomers is classes offered by the YMCA, but they don't often meet the needs for most newcomers. For example, they can't sit in a class for three hours. They can't sit in a class of 40 people and expect to improve their beginner level English. So that's the problem that we're trying to address here, and AI is a perfect fit for that because we have an endlessly patient teacher who can take you through the beginner level steps of English.

So we're focusing on three primary features to jumpstart people, and that is pronunciation analysis, roleplay scenarios, and a live AI tutor. we can get started, I suppose.

Features of Fluent Future

So this is the Fluent Future app, and I can sign in with our email. And actually, this was supposed to, okay, there we go.

So I'm gonna choose French for our native language. And I just wanna preface and say that sometimes I might mispronounce some words or use some incorrect English. And don't worry, I'm not having a stroke. It's all part of the plan to show you the application.

1And for this next section here, we can put in our interests so that they could be personal and also our job aspirations. So I'm going to choose photography and also software engineering. And this is what's going to be used to personalize the content that we can practice on later.

So I'll just complete the setup. And now we're ready to get started.

Pronunciation Analysis

So first things first, we've got to take a pronunciation assessment because we've got to gauge what level of pronunciation we're at. So here we're going to see letters, words, and sentences covering a wide range of sounds that are in the English language. So I'll just go ahead and start with this.

L. Oops. L. R. V. And then I'm going to skip ahead to a few words, maybe, and I'll pronounce this word as Deary. So there I mispronounced diary as Deary, and we're going to see why that's going to be helpful later.

I'm going to skip through the rest of these until we get to some sentences. And I'll pronounce this one. Measure the right with care.

And then we can go ahead and finish up. So we can take a look at our results now. And we can compare how I pronounce the word.

which the audio is unfortunately not coming through, but it normally does come through, and you would hear me say deary, and then we can compare it to how a native speaker would sound. Okay, I suppose the audio is not working at all, unfortunately. Oh, is it?

Diary. All right, I guess we're going to have to really listen in there. Diary. And then how I pronounce it.

Deary. So I can hear how I can improve my pronunciation. And we also do sentences as well.

So it identified that I mispronounced the word light and I said right instead. And I can see a phoneme breakdown of that word so I can identify what are the gaps in my pronunciation. So here I received a score of zero for the phoneme L.

And we're going to see why that's important in a second.

Roleplay Scenarios

So while all that was happening, it was generating modules for me to practice. So here in the top section, we have modules to practice everyday English. And if you go through all these modules, you will be ready for conversational English.

And once you learn all these words, you can put it to good use in our role play features. Which brings us to our next feature, which is the role play section. So in this, you can practice situations. And for example, ordering pizza, asking for directions, or maybe even reporting a crime.

And for native speakers, it's easy to just go out and have a conversation. But for newcomers, these situations can be really almost life-threatening. So essentially, this gives them a safe space to practice these.

So the content that gets generated is also dependent on something called your CLE score, which is your Canadian Language Benchmark. And those are a set of functional requirements that essentially determine what level the content that you're going to see is. And as you do more pronunciation, you'll see more content appropriate to your level.

So for example, I guess we'll try this one. Hi. How's the app development going? What's the latest update? So this is a voice-to-voice scenario, and essentially you just have a conversation where your goal is to try and complete the task.

The project is going well, but of course Jim here pushed another PR that broke everything. So actually I should have used some broken English there, but I guess... Oh no, that's not good. What part broke? He broke he did everything. I think he changed something about the login part. Now it's not working right.

And then afterwards, we can end the conversation, or the EAI will also end the conversation themselves, and you'll receive feedback on your responses that you did on how you can improve and make it better. In addition to that, you also get scores which are going to adjust the scenarios that you're going to see in the future.

Live AI Tutor

So some students, they'll like this practice where they can practice in these situations where there's not really any big deal. But sometimes people want to actually have an all-knowing tutor that can help them. And while they're doing their work, they can get advice and ask questions whenever they want to.

So that brings us to our third feature, which is the live AI tutor. And this one hasn't been released to our beta testers just yet, so it's in a strange place. But Essentially, you have a live tutor, and her name is Sarah. And while you're doing exercises and worksheets, she can give you feedback and advise you on how you can improve.

Conclusion

Yeah, so just to close, this is Fluent Future, and we're currently in closed beta, and we're looking to launch in a couple months. We are continuously improving the application, and we're also looking for collaborators.

So if you're interested in talking to us, you can email us at info at fluentfuture.ca.

But, yeah, thank you for your time, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of the evening.