Teachers' Role

In the search for more suitable teaching styles and methods to bridge the gap between traditional courses and the changes in technology, E-learning (in its purest form or as part of blended learning) has been regarded as the universal remedy to cure all problems of the traditional approach to education. The information and communication systems became thus part of the learning process as a medium to facilitate knowledge acquisition [8], The basis of E-learning dates back to the 60S when the first attempts were made to teach children using computers. The first E-learning courses were actually computer-based, but from its inception the Internet represented the real medium of the first E- learning programs.
At the beginning, E-learning 2.0 courses were built around mere instructional packages delivered to students via assignments. [9] The packages consisted in a number of activities which could have been copies of lectures used in traditional courses, or just reading materials and collections of links. Gradually, E-learning has developed to include social media, blogs, virtual classes on platforms like Second Life, use of artificial intelligence and avatars. Therefore, the small world of E- learning classes has been enriched with more elements that encouraged students Dself-learning such as quizzes that could be automatically scores, e-mail support, chat rooms, etc.
According to Dudley and Evans [10], even the role of the traditional teacher evolved in time to become more complex; in 1998, they identified five roles of the ESP teaches as:
* Teacher
* Course designer and material provider
* Collaborator
* Researcher
* Evaluator
The idea that the teacher should be more than the one strictly offering information from books became increasingly fashionable in the 90S. Some researchers even concluded that the one teaching a course and the one designing it should be the same person as only this double function could guarantee the successful transfer of knowledge. David Nunan pointed out [11] the necessity to involve teachers in the development of curricula as providers of models and guidelines, or as actors in a curriculum advisory position.
With the implementation of E-learning, some of the traditional roles of teaches were altered or even disappeared, but, in exchange, other new roles have emerged. If in case of blended learning, the teacher-student interaction still exists to some extent, in asynchronous classes, the learners have only the platform to mime real human interaction via e-mails and chat rooms.
According to EDUCASE [12] the roles of the teacher in the modern e-learning classroom have changed to better suit the demands of virtual reality. Functioning as an architect that has to make decisions on the materials used by students to work with, or as a consultant to address the major problems by providing the expert opinion, this new type of teacher has to create an instructional framework to foster learning. This instructional framework is different from the traditional learning as it lacks human, face-to-face interaction that would promote a pleasant learning environment, so the need to support students has become greater by providing guidelines, reassurance, and support. Moreover, as a publisher, the teacher will develop and distribute content in form of podcasting, blogging, on-line publishing, etc.
According to Rodriguez, [13] the teacher in online courses assumes two different positions with different roles: tutor and consultant. The table below shows the repartition of roles:
A major difference from traditional courses resides not only in the lack of human interaction, but in the virtual environment itself, in the use of technology (computers, mobile phones, tablets, etc.), and in the difficulty to create a supportive learning environment in a world which is not familiar to many. The computer screen and the software will function as a barrier that has to be overcome by the teacher through constant support and promotion of reflection, he/she being the only specialist in management and technology who can actually do this.
This requires a great amount of flexibility to solve unforeseen problems, constant monitoring of not only students Dprogress, but also of their interaction in the chat room in order to intervene and make timely decision about the course. Therefore, the teachers Drôle in E-learning becomes more difficult than the one in the traditional courses. The constant monitoring involves long hours spent in front of the computers reading messages and trying to answer problems that appeared in an asynchronous environment. The gap between the moment when the problem emerged and the one when the teacher is actually aware of it becomes a major problem in virtual classes.