Korean Job Discussion Forums

[rooster_2006]

Man, this is great.

Although I feel *very* threatened, the great thing about native speaker teachers is that they can be kicked and ddongchimed repeatedly by rowdy students without need for costly repairs.

And the price tag of 2,000,000 won -- might seem cheap compared to a flesh-and-blood native speaker, but consider this:
How much is it going to cost to repair/replace this thing every single week when a student kicks it or ddongchims it?

I wonder how this robot will manage classes, especially larger classes of 40 or 50 students.

[jrwhite82]

[Troglodyte]

I think that what we'll probably see at some point in the near future (near being in the next 10 years) is more video conferencing. It would probably be a lot cheaper to pay a video conference type company in the USA or elsewhere to round up local teacher, perhaps even ones who teach from home, and set up a big screen and video camera in the classroom. They'll still need a local to monitor the kids, but that could be anyone. It wouldn't even need to be a teacher. Maybe just some part-time college kid, paid to sit there and occasionally make sure kids are behaving, clean up the room afterwards, turn on/off the computer, etc.

If they went through some video-teaching company, the company itself could pay teachers anywhere in the world, as long as the teacher has high speed internet at home. The schools could pay in advance for a certain number of hours based on how many classes they need a teacher for that month. The company would hire teachers and pay them per hour. If the school doesn't like a certain teacher, they can easily get rid of them and get a new one next week. No complaints from the teacher. No extra payments like airfare and apartment. No runners. Sure, most moms would like their kids to have in-person time with the teacher, but for the reduced cost (and possibility of even having the classes at home via internet) would probably convince some to go for it.

It would be a benefit to some teachers as well. The teacher could be living some place cheap like Peru but making more money teaching online classes than what a local in-person class would pay.

I don't think that the robots and video classes will ever totally replace in person classroom teaching but I can easily picture video classes increasing dramatically in the next decade.

[rooster_2006]

[Smee]

This topic comes up every now and then in the papers and on the sites. It sure captures the imagination, but what we've seen from when they're actually used, the robots suck. Last month Time magazine named the robots one of their top inventions of 2010, obviously not doing much homework on them:

http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com/2010/11/time-magazine-names-koreas-english.html

If English is as important as everyone knows and says it is, it's time to move beyond gimmics. Koreans already struggle actually using the language because of the way English is rendered ridiculous and exists as a subject, and not a language, detached from actual English speakers. Taking English speakers out of the classroom won't help.

[JBomb]

I think it is great to see the ideas of robots in the classroom. Using them to get rid of native teachers however misses the point. Technology should not replace the teacher and should only help and reinforce learning objectives. Imagine, a k-teacher, an NET, and a robot. Sounds fun to me.

[winterfall]

[sublunari]

It would be more practical to replace the Koreans with robots. That way they could study around the clock and spend their whole lives slaving away at mindless occupations without any of the problems caused by free-thinking human beings.

[stevieg4ever]

Who says they want real conversations and want to be exposed to foreigners??

[stevieg4ever]

i wonder if there might be any job opening to teach the robots.... It would certainly be a step up in my case...

nevertheless perhaps we can hope for an ED209 situation hehe