The role of the teacher in an online classroom

The role of the teacher in the 21st century has moved its sight. Nowadays, teachers are considered to be mentors, instructors, facilitators and coaches. More and more people say that the role of the teacher is not so important as it used to be (especially in an online classroom) and that teachers are unnecessary. There is a variety of self-paced courses, the English learner can choose any and study successfully. However, it is not so simple and the role of the teacher is invaluable. In this article, we are going to discuss the roles and functions of the teacher in an online classroom and what these roles impose on us.

Instructor 

Despite the variety of online courses existing on the Internet, students still need a teacher who will guide them through the curriculum. For example, Skyeng has education platform with ready-to-use General, Business, Professional, Spoken courses created by the professional methodists. However, students do need a teacher to guide them through a variety of courses, explain the task, clarify some points, etc. The student may have an unclear goal or may not state it correctly, thus, the teacher is there to estimate the current needs and build the course correctly. Moreover, the teacher can provide additional activities and resources that a particular student may need to fully absorb the knowledge and satisfy the needs.

Motivator and Customizer

Our students need a teacher to praise, encourage, and make them see the result and proceed studying. That is how a self-paced online course is different from studying with a teacher: there are only a few people who can study without guidance and motivation. Others need a teacher who will motivate them at the moment when they are ready to give up.

Even more than that, most online courses are created to meet the needs of an average student. However, the students like and need an individual approach and they want to study the material that helps reach their goals. Thus, the teacher controls the input, corrects the course, adapts the material and activities to personalize ‘standard’ online course.

Organizer and Tutor

Students do need a friendly environment for productive learning. Thus, a teacher should be a welcoming host in an online classroom, he/she should be a conversation starter and motivate students to communicate as much as possible. It is not currently possible to adequately communicate with AI machines. Of course, students can just organize speaking clubs by themselves, gather together and talk to each other every week, but how do they know if they do everything in the right way? 

In individual lessons (which is the main form of classes at Skyeng) the teacher is a student’s interlocutor and the main language partner. The teacher keeps the track of STT and TTT and makes sure that the student speaks as much as possible. Even if there are group lessons (e.g. speaking clubs), the teacher should wisely assign roles, control the communication process, guide it in the right way and iron out difficulties.

Technical specialist

In spite of the presence of technical support for Skyeng students on our platform, a teacher is still the first person who guides a learner through numerous functions, task types, applications available to the student and who solves the technical problems that arise in the lesson (well, at least those problems that he/she can) before redirecting an issue to the support. So nowadays it is essential for an online teacher to be well-versed in technologies.