Being replaced.....by robots??

I've found some interesting articles online that I thought I would share. Some trial programs are being run in South Korea where students are being taught English by ROBOTS! Apparently the robots can speak back to the children and have a screen built in to show students things like how to solve a problem, or how to correct their spoken English. Crazy!! I doubt this trend will catch on in full, though. My guess is that English speaking teachers will work in conjunction with robot teachers to enrich the learning process, not to replace it. Either way, it's something interesting!!

Here are some clips from the articles I've found:

Children in a South Korean city have begun taking classes where the teachers are robots.

A total of 29 egg-shaped robots are teaching English to students in primary schools in the south-eastern city of Taegu.
The robots are about one metre tall, have a TV display panel for a face and are able to speak to students and read them books.
The robots are remotely controlled by teachers in the Philippines who can see and hear the children via a video link.
If the pilot program is successful, teaching robots are expected to be sent to remote rural areas of South Korea.





The next article was published by The Korea Times. Something interesting: The Korea Times OWNS the school I work for! One of the higher-ups at the newspaper is the founder Brown International. In fact, the newspaper have an office on the same floor as the school.

According to The Korea Times, “During the second decade of the new millennium, robots are expected to replace English-speaking teachers here in Korea.”
This would leave approximately 25 to 30,000 English teachers currently employed in South Korea staring at the uncanny valley of unemployment.
Named by Time as one of the “50 Best Inventions of 2010,” meet the job terminator: South Korea’s new English-speaking robot. The government, wanting to keep South Korean students competitive in English, introduced the robot teachers into 3 schools in late 2009 with plans to have them in over 20 schools by the end of 2010. The red lipped, humanoid robots are commonly referred to as “Engbots.”
“By around 2015, robots should be able to help teachers in English classes. By 2018, they should be able to teach on their own while communicating with students,” said Kim Shin-hwan, an economist at the Hyundai Research Institute in The Korean Times.
Don’t expect a global robotic rollout anytime soon. Costs of production, deployment and human training will slow the process, particularly amid a recession. But overall cost is an interesting fact to consider: unlike human teachers robots don’t need salaries or benefits.