Korea to offer commercially viable English-speaking robots in 2013

By Kim Tae-gyu 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.’’ Engkey has arrested the attention of students in the English-language classes in Masan elementary schools this year thanks to her cute penguin-like shape, tender female-voice pronunciation and ability to interact. However, the robot was found to freeze if a student goes off the scripted dialogue. In addition, Engkey is too expensive as it currently costs about 50 million won ($44,000) for a robot to be built. KIST is optimistic about grappling with the drawbacks ― the organization expects that an Engkey will be made for 2 million won by 2013 and its applications should be good enough to replace native speakers by then. ``The robots are designed to help those in rural areas or remote islands where few English-speaking teachers are available to work,’’ Park said. The upside potential of the machines has been recognized by overseas media such as the New York Times and CNN midway through this year. Time Magazine picked it as one of the best 50 innovations for this year, calling it the ``job terminator’’ in Korea, which presently employs around 30,000 foreigners to teach English. ``The brightly colored, squat androids are part of an effort to keep South Korean students competitive in English. Not surprisingly, the proposal has worried a few human teachers and with good reason,’’ the magazine said. ``Experts say the robots could eventually phase out flesh-and-blood foreign English teachers all together.’’ On top of developing and advancing applications of the education robots, Korea aims to make many other service robots to become one of the top three robotics powerhouses by 2018. 영어교육 로봇 2차 시험, 2013년 상용화 한국과학기술연구원은 12월 13일부터 29대의 영어교육 로봇 “잉키(Engkey)”를 대구지역 21개 초등학교에 배치 2차 시범사업을 펼친다. 올해 마산 지역에 이은 2번째 시범사업이다. 잉키는 이미 올해 마산에서의 사업을 통해 많은 인기를 끌었다. 뉴욕타임스나 CNN같은 유수의 언론 스포트라이트를 받았을 뿐만 아니라 타임지가 선정한 올해의 50개 혁신 상품에 들기도 했다. 과기원에 따르면 향후 이후 2차례 정도 더 시범사업을 거쳐 2013년경에 상용화를 목표를 하고 있다고 한다. 잉키의 시장성을 높이기 위해 과기원은 현재 5,000만원에 달하는 조립비용을 200만원까지 줄이려고 노력하고 있다. 또한 인간과의 상호작용 능력도 향상되어 2013년이면 원어민 교사를 대체할 수준에 이를 것으로 낙관하고 있다. 잉키는 1차 시범사업을 통해서 정해진 대본대로 하는 수업에서는 훌륭한 능력을 보였다. 귀여운 외모, 부드러운 여성의 목소리, 정확한 발음 등이 칭송 받았지만 대본을 벗어난 인간의 반응에 대해 제대로 대응하지 못하는 한계점도 노정했다.

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