Robot Teaching

Heard this on the way home from work today.  I found it a bit odd but neat at the same time.  Some South Korean schools are trying little robots with a video display and speaker to teach English to elementary students.  Here is the kicker, on the video screen is an avatar of a Caucasian female face whose mouth moves while a teacher in the Philippines provides the live voice.  The school administrators mentioned how they could cut their cost of instruction in half by not having a real-life native English instructor.

Source: Dawn.com

Pretty creepy looking.  One needs to think about why they need robots though.  Couldn't a web cam and a video-conferencing program do the same?  Well, yes and no.  In addition to helping out the robotics industry, it helps self-conscious young students gain confidence without the pressure of having to interact with a real human.  Having been an ESL instructor in Japan, I understand.  This also might work out better for traditional native speaker teacher.  I haven't heard much good come from teaching in Korea.