Journal of Robotics, Networking and Artificial Life
Vol. 8(2); September (2021), pp. 145–149
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2991/jrnal.k.210713.015; ISSN 2405-9021; eISSN 2352-6386
https://www.atlantis-press.com/journals/jrnal

Research Article

Development of English Learning System by Using NFC Tag
Shogo Aizawa, Motohide Yoshimura*
Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Information Systems, University of Nagasaki, 1-1-1 Manabino, Nagayo-cho,Nishi-Sonogi-gun, Nagasaki 851-2195, Japan

ARTICLE INFOABSTRACTArticle History

We innovate an educational toy to play the English learning system. The proposed system uses a Raspberry Pi and two Near
Field Communication (NFC) readers. The user can learn English words in three steps by using our system. First, NFC tags
are presented corresponding to English words and illustrations, such as a cat, dog and chicken etc. Next, a pair of tags isrequired to select corresponding to an English word and illustration. Finally, by holding the pair over the NFC reader, theanswer is displayed on a touch panel to inform whether it is correct or incorrect. Our system has two aspects. The one is an
educational system for children and the other is an educational toy playing with children. As to the former, the system helps
the children as users can learn English words by intuitive operation such as operating the touch panel and holding the NFC
tags. As to the latter, it offers a learning experience with the Information and Communication Technology (ICT). In thispaper, we report findings through the construction of the English learning system.

Received 25 November 2020
Accepted 07 June 2021
Keywords
English learning system
educational toylearning trough playNFCIDm© 2021 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press International B.V.
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

1. INTRODUCTION
Information and communication technology is now a necessary
part of our lives. In 2019, 96.1% of households have their own
mobile terminals, and 83.4% of households have their own smartphones, and then more than 80% of households are relying on thedevice [1]. The development and spread of ICT has brought aboutmajor changes outside the ICT field. The role of Information andCommunication Technology (ICT) in the field of education is also
important. In 2020, programming education became compulsory
in elementary schools, and the new teaching guidelines for elementary schools announced in March 2017 stated as follows, “In order
to cultivate the ability of information utilization, ICT equipment
such as computers and networks will be provided at every school.
We will equip the appropriate environment to utilize these tools andenhance learning activities [2].” The basic idea of ICT utilization by
the Ministry of Education is as follows, “Based on the new teachingguidelines, there are three important aspects. The one is the balanced
development of the three pillars of qualities and abilities. The second
is the aggressive utilization of ICT as the teaching materials, theteaching and learning tools according to both of the actual conditionsof children and schools, and characteristics and learning steps of eachsubject. The third is the class improvement for the proactive, interactive and deep learning [3].” In addition to ICT utilization suchas efficient and effective presentation using the large screen, thegoal is to prepare a terminal for each student and promote learning independently and interactively. By using ICT equipments, it
is possible to improve the problem on the limited learning time
efficiently. Effective utilization of ICT is an important issue forenhancing future educational activities.
Corresponding author. Email: yxsimura@sun.ac.jp*

The utilization of ICT equipment is underway in all subjects.
Especially, the use of ICT in English education is being actively promoted, and 99.1% of schools utilize ICT equipments in English education in elementary schools [4]. However, according to a survey ofJapanese children’s use of digital devices in schools at Organisationfor Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Programmefor International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018, the percentageof students who answered that they did not use ICT devices in theirschool’s “foreign language” class was 67.0%, it is the worst among
participating countries [4]. It can be said that the environment inwhich teachers utilize ICT in English education is in place, but theenvironment in which students themselves use ICT to learn English
is not sufficiently developed.
In this research, we developed an English learning system by usingICT, especially the Near Field Communication (NFC) tag. Oursystem is a kind of an educational toy and has the advantage thatthe user enjoy learning English by using NFC tags. The system isbasically consists of Raspberry Pi and two NFC readers and cards
with NFC tag attached. The user simply selects and places both acard with an animal English name and a card with an animal picture on NFC readers, and then the correct or incorrect answer isshown on the touch panel display. The device gains a new interest of
the children and offers ICT experience through simple operations.
By using our system, users can learn English through play and get
accustomed to involving with ICT. The proposed system consistsof easily available electronic devices and can be expected to utilize
as a material for programming education at home. In this paper,
we report the findings obtained in the construction of the system
by using NFC tags. We will show examples of educational toys inSection 2. In Section 3, we will describe our system by using NFCtags. In Section 4, we will show experimental results. In Section 5,
we will summarize the paper.

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2. EDUCATIONAL TOYS FOR CHILDREN

3.2. Development Environment

2.1. Overview of Educational Toys

In this system, the user proceed the English learning simply byholding a card with an animal English name and a card withan animal picture over the NFC reader. The system consists ofRaspberry Pi 4, and the OS Raspbian (version 10 (buster)) as thePlatform, two NFC readers and illustration cards with an English
animal name and or animal picture, at which the NFC tag isattached. Python (version 3.7.3) is used to construct the system.
NFC Py (version 1.0.3) is used to operate the NFC reader.

With the development of ICT in recent years, ICT is also being
incorporated into electrical toys of educational use for children.
Products so-called educational toys are on the market. Many studies
on educational toys using ICT have been active in recent years [5,6].
Currently, interactive speakers equipped with voice user interfaces
such as Amazon Echo, Google Home and Clova Friends, and so on
are becoming widespread in general households [7]. These studies
analyze the interaction between children and interactive speakers with the aim of developing interactive speakers for childcare.
Interactive speakers will become more and more popular in generalhouseholds and the importance for educational toys at home will
also become more prominent. Under these circumstances, programming education in elementary schools has started in Japan, and theimportance of developing educational toys that use Bluetooth Low
Energy (BLE), NFC, QR codes, etc. for the purpose of supporting
programming education in general households increase. By using
educational toys, users can experience the world of information
communication with more intuitive operations than using a smartphone or PC, expanding the range of play from the analog world
to the digital world. These toys are more attractive than past toys
by connecting multiple devices and exchanging data with wirelesscommunication and have a new aspect in the sense of education
to gain children’s potential by learning through play. These toys arevery useful as a means to improve their abilities in the development
stage as recently emphasized to call programming education.

3.3. System Overview
We will explain the outline of our system. Figure 1 shows the systemconfiguration diagram.
This tool processes the content reading by the NFC reader withRaspberry Pi and reflects it on the touch panel. Sony’s PaSoRi
RC-S380/S is used to read NFC tags, Kuman’s 7-inch touch panel isused to display the screen, JBL Charge 4 portable Bluetooth speakeris used to play audio, and Raspberry Pi 4 is used to process and execute codes. The purpose of this system is to learn the English namesof animals. There are two kinds of cards, “Animal Name Card” withan animal English name and “Animal Card” with an animal picture
as shown in Figure 2.
The NFC tag is embedded on the back of each card. In this system,
unique serial number IDm of each NFC tag is associated with eachof the “Animal Name Card” and “Animal Card”, and the correct

2.2. CORO-PUTER-Ja.
“CORO-PUTER-Ja.” is a wooden educational toy developed byTDS Co., Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) [8]. When a wooden hiragana blockwith an embedded Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag isrolled onto a wooden frame with an embedded reader, the reader
reads the tag and then the hiragana is displayed on a smartphoneconnected via Bluetooth. This allows the user to learn letters andwords and get in touch with technology through the play of rolling
blocks. Even infants can easily pick up blocks, carry them to theframe, and roll them, so they can learn through play. It can be said
that the strength of educational toys is that a lot of information canbe obtained with this simple operation.

3. ENGLISH LEARNING SYSTEMUSING NFC

Figure 1 | System configuration diagram.

3.1. Features of our English
Learning SystemIn this research, we innovated an educational toy to play theEnglish learning system by using NFC tags for children that aims
to integrate English learning and ICT. By using this system, the user
can learn English through play and can also experience some ofthe ICT. NFC is rooted in radio-frequency identification technology known as RFID and it offers a contactless exchange of dataover short distances. Two NFC-capable devices are connected via apoint-to-point contact over a distance of 0–2 cm. This connection
can be used to exchange data between the devices.

Figure 2 | Card with NFC tag attached.

S. Aizawa and M. Yoshimura / Journal of Robotics, Networking and Artificial Life 8(2) 145–149

Figure 3 | A scene of playing by using our system.

or incorrect answer is determined by pairing two IDm. The NFC
tag used for each card is Sanwa Supply’s NFC tag (product model
number: MM-NFCT). Two NFC readers are prepared so that the“Animal Name Card” and “Animal Card” can be read at the sametime.
A scene of playing by using our English learning system is shownin Figure 3. After trial and error, the operation panel is designed
as shown in Figure 3. The touch panel display is placed at thetop and two NFC readers is placed at the bottom. The operation
panel is designed so that the user can simply know where to put
the “Animal Name Card” and “Animal Card”. The user places the“Animal Name Card” and “Animal Card” on each reader (dashedframes in Figure 3) and presses the “Play” button on the touch
panel, and then the correct or incorrect answer is shown on thetouch panel display as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 4 | Panel display playing with the proposed system.

3.4. System Behavior
The system behavior through play is shown in Figures 4–6. As toFigure 4, the user places the “Animal Name Card” on the lower
dashed frame and “Animal Card” on the upper dashed frame on theoperation panel and presses the “Play” button, and then the IDmof each NFC tag is read by the reader and whether the pair of thecard is correct or incorrect is shown on the touch panel display. Acorrect case is shown in Figure 5 and an incorrect case is shown inFigure 6. In case that the answer is correct, for example, the dog’s“Animal Name Card” and the dog’s “Animal Card” in Figure 5,a notification sound indicating that the pair is correct is set to ring
and an illustration (Ο) is displayed on the touch panel. In case thatthe answer is incorrect, for example, a cat’s “Animal Card” anda dog’s “Animal Name Card” in Figure 6, a sound indicating that thepair is incorrect is set to ring and an illustration (×) is displayed on
the touch panel. In addition, only if the pair is incorrect, the correct
animal bark that matches the “Animal Card” is played through thespeaker, and the frame of the “Animal Name Card” on the screen
is blinked to suggest that another “Animal Name Card” is to beplaced. The reason for playing the correct animal bark that matches
the “Animal Name Card” is to make it easier to imagine an animalillustration by hearing of the bark.

4. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
4.1. Questionnaire as to System Usability
In this research, we have a plan of a two-stage experimental process. The first is for the verification of the system usability on ourFigure 5 | Panel display for a correct pair of cards.

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Table 1 | Q.1: Do you enjoy using the system?
Answer

ABCD

Counts00

1131

Table 2 | Q.2: Is it easy to use the system?
AnswerAB

CD

Counts01

1625

questionnaire after using the proposed English learning system.
The results of the questionnaire are shown in Tables 1 and 2,respectively.
In each question, answers A–D were weighted as 1–4 respectively.
Finally, the weighted average for each question was calculated. Asshown in the results, the average on Question 1 was 3.74, which
implies that it was fun to use the system for users. The averageon Question 2 was 3.57, which implies that it is sufficiently easy
to use the system. According to the free description part in thequestionnaire, the system design needs to be refined furthermore.
Colors and shapes of cards and the placement method can beimproved to help user can use the NFC reader easier and recognize the contents.

5. CONCLUSION
Figure 6 | Panel display for an incorrect pair of cards.

panel design and the second is for the verification of the learning
effect by using the proposed system. First, we describe the experimental result of the first stage, since it is not possible to conduct
experiments on elementary school under the current conditions of
the coronavirus disease. For the first stage, we conducted a questionnaire to 42 students of our university, who have the expertisein system usability. The questionnaire is focused on whether thesystem is enjoyable as an educational toy and easy to use in termsof panel design.

In this research, we prototyped an English learning system that integrates English learning and ICT by using NFC tags. In the proposed
concept as reading NFC tags with two NFC readers, our system
can effectively manage English words and illustrations to represent those word meaning in a complementary way. In the future,experiment for the verification of the learning effect by using theproposed system. The system will be improved to enhance themechanism for children to learn with a high interest.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
The authors declare they have no conflicts of interest.

4.2. Experimental Results
We presented the following questions and choices of answer:--Question 1: Do you enjoy using the system?
Answer: A is ‘boring’, B is ‘somewhat boring’, C is ‘somewhat fun’,and D is ‘fun’.
--Question 2: Is it easy to use the system?
Answer: A is ‘difficult to use’, B is ‘somewhat difficult to use’, C is‘somewhat easy to use’, and D is ‘easy to use’.
--At this experiment, after giving a short lecture on the systemusability, we conduct the questionnaire. The examinees answer theACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by Nagasaki West Rotary Club.

REFERENCES
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[2]
[3]
[4]

Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2020 WHITE
PAPER Information and Communications in Japan, 2021 (inJapanese).
Ministry of Education, Elementary School Programming
Education Guide, 3rd ed., (in Japanese). Retrieved at March 30th,2021.
Ministry of Education, Effective use of ICT in teaching each subject (in Japanese). retrieved at March 30th, 2021.
Ministry of Education, Effective use of ICT in teaching Foreignlanguages (in Japanese). retrieved at March 30th, 2021.

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[5]

[6]

K. Mitsukuni, J. Ichikawa, Y. Hori, Y. Ikeno, L. Alexandre,
T. Kawamoto, et al., Analysis of interaction for the developing an interactive speaker for children, Proceedings ofthe 33rd Annual Conference of the Japanese Society for
Artificial Intelligence, JSAI, Niigata, Japan, 2019, pp. 1–4 (inJapanese).
J. Ichikawa, K. Mitsukuni, Y. Hori, Y. Ikeno, L. Alexandre, T.
Kawamoto, et al., Investigation of interaction between children

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and an utterance-output device focused on personality, Trans.
Japan Soc. Kansei Eng. 19 (2020), 173–179 (in Japanese).
R. Ota (Impress Watch), Survey on The Actual Usage of
Subscription-based Music Distribution Services – Expansion ofUsage with Interactive Speakers (in Japanese). archived at March30th, 2018, retrieved at May 15th, 2021.
TDS Co., LTD., CORO-PUTER-Ja. (in Japanese). retrieved atMarch 30th, 2021.

AUTHORS INTRODUCTION
Mr. Shogo Aizawa
He received his Bachelor’s degree of Science inInformation Systems at University of Nagasaki.
His interest is vitalization of regional community through educational workshop by using
multimedia contents with IoT and AI.

Dr. Motohide Yoshimura
He is a Professor of Faculty of Information
Systems at University of Nagasaki in Japan.
He received his Dr. of Eng. degree in Graduate
School of Engineering at Tokushima University
in 1999. His research interests is town planningand product design by using IoT, AI, and so on.