Computers are widely used in education,and some people think teachers do not play any important roles in the classroom. To what extent do you agree?
Computers can be a good aide to teachers in the classroom but they can never take the place of teachers.
1. An important role of teachers is to encourage students to learn. However, computers are not capable of this spiritual encouragement.
A teacher will notice that a student is not interested in a certain subject and does not listen carefully in class. The teacher will talk with this student after class and find out the reasons why this student is not interested. Then the teacher can tell the student the importance of this subject and motivate the student to learn harder.
2. Teachers have different approaches to teaching different students and will adjust the content or style of teaching according to the needs of different students. However computers only have fixed programs.
A teacher can even design a tailor-made study plan for a particular student according to his or her needs. But computers view every student as the same individual.
3. Apart from academic teaching, teachers are also concerned about the psychological growth of students and often teach students about moral integrity. In contrast, computers are just machines and do not have feelings or emotions.
Teachers will teach students about such virtues as love, honesty, moral integrity and friendship etc.
4. Computers are machines after all and machines break down sometimes. If students depend too much on computers for studying, they will feel at a loss when these machines go wrong and don not work properly
5. Learning and teaching is a highly interactive process. Different students will have different questions during different stages of teaching and learning. And the teachers will have to answer them accordingly and in different ways. But computer programs are pre-designed by programmers without knowing all the varying circumstances during real teaching and learning and therefore cannot give satisfactory answers to all these questions.
Teachers can use computers as a very good aide in the classroom for presenting multimedia files. Teachers and computers can co-exist in the classroom peacefully. Teachers and computers can be a perfect match in the classroom. For example, in a listening lab equipped with computers, students will be able to record the listening materials in a CD-Rom and then take home to listen more.