Inspiration
Speaking is the most challenging skill for English learners. While there are many apps for vocabulary and grammar, learners rarely receive immediate feedback when they actually speak.
Many students preparing for exams like IELTS, or professionals preparing for interviews, struggle because they don’t know whether their pronunciation is clear, how fluent they sound, or how to structure better answers.
Traditional speaking practice usually requires expensive tutors or speaking partners, which makes consistent practice difficult. We wanted to explore how AI could act as a personal speaking coach that listens, analyzes communication patterns, and provides instant, actionable feedback so users can improve every time they speak.
That idea became Fluento: an AI tool that reflects your speaking performance and helps you improve in real time.
What it does
Fluento is an AI-powered speaking coach that helps users improve English communication through instant analysis and feedback.
Users can practice in realistic scenarios such as IELTS Speaking Practice and Job Interview Simulation.
After the user speaks, Fluento provides:
- an estimated speaking score
- pronunciation, fluency, and grammar analysis
- suggestions for improved answers
The system also generates better versions of the user’s response, allowing them to immediately retry and improve their speaking performance.
How we built it
Fluento combines several AI technologies to analyze speech and generate meaningful feedback.
Speech Recognition
We convert the user’s spoken input into text using automatic speech recognition. This allows us to analyze the structure and content of the response.
AI Language Analysis
We use a large language model, Ollama, to evaluate the response based on multiple speaking criteria:
- Fluency
- Vocabulary richness
- Grammatical accuracy
- Answer structure The model also generates improved versions of the user’s answer.
System Architecture
Simplified pipeline:
User Speech
↓
Speech-to-Text
↓
Language Analysis (LLM)
↓
Scoring + Feedback Generation
↓
Improved Answer Suggestions
The frontend interface allows users to interact with the system in real time and visualize feedback through score indicators and improvement suggestions.
Challenges we ran into
One of the biggest challenges was balancing accuracy with response speed. Since the goal is to give users instant feedback, the system had to process speech, analyze responses, and generate suggestions quickly enough to maintain a smooth experience.
We also had to carefully design the user interface so that feedback is clear and encouraging rather than overwhelming, especially for learners who may already feel nervous about speaking.
What we learned
During this project, we learned several important lessons about AI-powered learning tools.
- First, feedback must be actionable. Simply identifying mistakes is not enough — users need concrete examples of how to improve.
- Second, effective communication evaluation requires more than grammar checking. Fluency, structure, and confidence all play important roles in speaking performance.
- Finally, we learned that designing a simple and intuitive user experience is just as important as the AI itself. If feedback is easy to understand, users are much more motivated to practice.
What's next for Fluento
There are several exciting directions we want to explore for Fluento:
- We plan to improve interactivity so that users can see the measurable improvement in their speaking performance.
- Also, we aim to expand the platform beyond English learning to support professional communication training, including presentations, interviews, and public speaking.
Our long-term vision is to turn Fluento into an AI communication coach, helping people around the world become more confident and effective speakers.
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