Robot teaches English to Japanese students

Japan’s education ministry is planning to deploy English-speaking robots in schools across the country to help children improve their English.
According to a report by Japan’s national broadcaster NHK , the ministry will begin a trial deployment of the robots in April at about 500 schools nationwide. It will also provide students with study apps and “online conversation seminars” with native English speakers.
The education ministry has long been trying to improve students’ language skills, NHK reported, but it does not have the funding to hire native speakers in every school. By deploying the English-speaking robots, it believes it has found a much cheaper option.
NHK reports that Japanese students “are generally not good” at speaking or writing in English.
Japan has had the world’s first robot teacher since 2009. It’s called Saya and was tested in a fifth- and sixth-grade classroom in Tokyo, according to the Guardian at the time.
Giant Japanese robots NAO and Pepper from SoftBank already offer learning support in Singapore and London.
Norway-based No Izolation has developed the AV1 robot and has made it available to Scandinavian schools to help children with long-term illnesses stay in touch with their friends and the classroom.
The robot is controlled remotely by the child via an app on a mobile phone or tablet. It is equipped with Wi-Fi and 2G/3G/4G mobile networks and runs on batteries, so it can join students in class inside classrooms.
In Poland, Photon Entertainment is building a robot that teaches young children to code.
Analysts predict that the educational robotics market will reach $1.7 billion by 2023.
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