Aug 20 (NHK) - Japan's education ministry is planning to place English-speaking artificial intelligence robots in schools to help children improve their English oral communication skills.
Japanese students are generally not good at writing in English or speaking the language. Curriculum guidelines that are due to be fully implemented in 2 years will focus on nurturing those skills.
In April, the ministry will launch the robot initiative on a trial basis at about 500 schools nationwide.
Some schools have already adopted similar robots to enable students to have fun while honing their English pronunciation and conversation skills.
The ministry will also make study apps and online conversation sessions with native speakers of English available to students.
The ministry is currently dealing with some tough issues. It is under pressure to improve the English language skills of elementary school teachers, and it lacks the funds to hire enough native speakers of English for every school.
