"Brings language learning to life with real world videos!" Better than YouTube
Community Review for FluentU
My Take
FluentU is a smart product that continues to become smarter. Language students can always benefit from captions and much learning comes from REAL sources. Also, there are QUIZZES! I haven't used this feature, but being able to have students assess their knowledge after viewing is a great option. FluentU's intent to provide carefully curated, captioned, authentic sources is noteworthy. The company seems to be always trying to improve, which is good, but I did get a bit frustrated when I wasn't able to find certain topics or content. I believe that was just a sign of the newness of this tool. Ideally, I would love to see this site continue to grow to the point where I wouldn't have to spend time on YouTube at all. One final catch-- if you want to be a user with full access, you may have to pay a subscription fee at some point. There is a free preview, though. Check it out! If you see that the content is worth it, a few bucks to subscribe would definitely be worth the investment!
How I Use It
FluentU provides real world videos in an online, searchable format. If you have ever used YouTube to search for videos for your language class, then you know that the results can require a ton of sorting and captions? Only if you're lucky. FluentU has videos that you can search by language topic (preterite!) and includes REAL sources-- actual ads, real movie trailers, etc. in the target language. The captions option also allows you to pause and read words again, or see words in English plus the language you're studying. It helps you really dive into the language used in the video. I have used it to show videos in class and to find material that has already been sorted for me. FluentU also had blog posts with language teaching tips, resources to share, etc. There is an app and a website.