'Engkey' English Teachers: Egg-shaped Robot Teaches South Korean Students

English teachers always are very expensive in non-english countries. But South Korea has found its solution, they’are testing Engkey, a robotic teacher, in the Philippines. Engkey will walk in class among students, will talk to them and teach them English language, and can do a little dance too. But its a little clumsy and ugly robot. It don’t have human like figure, Instead of face it has a LED screen.

The developer say these robot will not require health care, no more sick leave, or vacation pay, but to get this teacher you must have to pay about $10,000 for one. A total of 29 English-language education robots will be placed in 21 elementary schools in Daegu next week for a four-month feasibility study to check the commercial viability of robotic teachers, to go on sale in 2013. 

The state-run Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) said Friday that the robotic assistants, dubbed “Engkey” combining “English” and “disc jockey,” will help teachers during English classes. “We will carry out the second-phase pilot program with Engkey until next March after wrapping up the first project over the past year in Masan, South Gyeongsang Province,’’ KIST spokesman Park Young-ho said. “We learned that Engkey should be able to fare well in markets based on the first phase of experiments. We are poised to conduct more pilot runs before commercially launching the robots in 2013.’’

It looks like South Korea’s aspirations of having robots in classrooms, teaching their youth, which were aiming for 2012, may be seeing adoption at a quicker rate. But, that’s not stopping a school in Daegu, South Korea, from planting a few 3-foot tall robots, oddly shaped like huge eggs, right in front of students, and teaching them English. The students reportedly love the Engkey, though, and that’s kept the little bots around.

In total, the Engkey robots stand 3.3-feet tall, and feature a small display where a female woman’s face is displayed. The robots don’t control themselves, though. The English teachers are in another room, controlling Engkey in its content, as well as the reactions to the students. The image of the woman’s face will actually copy the reaction of the teacher’s, thanks to cameras watching his or her face. 

Other than the fact that the students love the little ‘bots, the schools are adopting the robots at a faster rate due to the cheaper cost of hiring Filipino teachers. According to a school official, Kim Mi-Young, “The kids seemed to love it since the robots look, well, cute and interesting. But some adults also expressed interest, saying they may feel less nervous talking to robots than a real person.” She went on to add that having a robot in the classroom makes the students more active, and that their participation has climbed steadily since the robot’s introduction. Source : Web & Korea Times


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