29 unique new English teachers have arrived at Korean schools in Daegu, a city 240 kilometers south of Seoul. They are robots called Engkey capable of reading books, dancing, singing in English and teaching games to schoolchildren to learn the alphabet. The automata are remotely controlled from the Philippines by real-life English teachers who, thanks to the robots, can see and hear their primary school students in South Korea.
They are one meter tall , egg-shaped, and feature a black-and-white television screen that shows a woman’s face. According to Kim Mi-Young, Daegu’s head of education, ” having robots in classrooms makes students more engaged , especially shy ones, who find it difficult to practice a new language with human teachers.” The robots will be part of a four-month pilot program.
