Korean Job Discussion Forums

[liveinkorea316]

This article gave me a good laugh!

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2010/12/123_77813.html

[happiness]

anything to save money and keep the whiteys away.

this is what the result will be:

"oh, the kids loved it" says the 60 year old principals of the school.

[BigBuds]

[sulperman]

Does anybody have a date for the first KT article about robot teachers? Must have been a year and a half ago.

I thought people stopped taking robots seriously after teddy ruxpin. Am I wrong?

[jrwhite82]

Why not just use a computer program? The novelty will wear off after two classes.

And of course the company selling it and the education advisors receiving kickbacks will say its great.

Hopefully it doesn't crash as often as the computers at my school, because it will be pretty much useless.

[zenbone]

New job category...
Native English needed to Program English Teaching Robots. Apply Now!

[Troglodyte]

[sojusucks]

[conrad2]

First it was the "English Zone" bondoggles the elementary schools paid for. Now its robots.

[AsiaESLbound]

The droid will play, "droid says." Droids aren't welcome to marts, because they don't eat and only get in people's way. Droids aren't welcome at the bar, because they don't drink. Droids never leave their work place, because they have no rights.

[sojusucks]

[Bibbitybop]

No matter how well a Korean learns English, they won't be able to use it in the real world if they are never exposed to foreigners and the atmosphere and non-verbal communication that goes with real conversations.

[sojusucks]

[liveinkorea316]

As far as I can see from the pictures available online anyway, there will not be any "Robotics" involved except for the arms and wheels. The device they are calling a robot is actually a computer screen on wheels that shows a live feed from a webcam while simultaneously feeding back images and sounds to the location of the webcam. Basically what we all know as Skype or MSN messenger with video. The teaching is done by a flesh and blood teacher via the webcam. The only difference between this and teaching by teleconference or online is that the screen is put on wheels and moved around infront of students.

The idea of remote teaching by teleconference technology has been around for a while. It is a good idea and has benefits but while the technology has surely been there for almost a decade or more, despite potential cost savings it has not taken off much in any country for and discipline, let alone ESL. That is as far as I have heard.

So I think the basic premise of the robot idea is flawed because for a little extra cost, they could have a real life teacher in the classroom. Schools using these "robots" will be beaten out of the market by schools that use live teachers. Since when you divide the cost of a live teacher over the number of students they teach every day it comes out at not very much per student. I regularly teach more than 100 students per day and even if my salary is 100,000won per day that still only comes out at 1,000won per student - a pittance.

Korea Herald reporters need to check the stories they write...

[liveinkorea316]

Oh, and there are various other tasks such as meeting and socialising with students, setting exams and creating a good classroom atmosphere that would need to be considered.

The robot idea is only about the 50 minutes spent in classes. They have not considered the time outside of classes that is also spent by good teachers.