New/Future competition for English teachers

The robots, which display avatar face of a Caucasian womanan, are controlled remotely by teachers of English in the Philippines -- who can see and hear the children via a remote control system.

Cameras detect the Filipino teachers' facial expressions and instantly reflect them on the avatar's face, said Sagong Seong-Dae, a senior scientist at KIST...

Racial robots?  What will they think of next?

How tall is that thing, a meter?  Projecting the face onto a screen would be more effective.

Removing the human component from the average ESL classroom is decades away, at the least.  Right now, I'm more concerned with the Vietnamese economy.

WideAwake wrote:

Cameras detect the Filipino teachers' facial expressions[/b] and instantly reflect them on the avatar's face

Add into the fact that facial expression are completely different between culture's.

WideAwake wrote:

Removing the human component from the average ESL classroom is decades away, at the least.

Agreed I can see it becoming common place for online teaching\conversational language skills but classroom based teaching offers so much more.

WideAwake wrote:

Right now, I'm more concerned with the Vietnamese economy.

Why so?

The robot teaching idea is still long way to go in Vietnam.
Human touch still plays as an important success factor for an intangible product such as teaching service. Moreover, learning a language is not simply the language itself but also the culture. Culture is dictated through many dimensions. The core of the culture is only depicted through person's charisma and energy which that culture's person presents.