Robot teachers

Read an article about robot teachers to practise and improve your reading skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then read the text and do the exercises.

Preparation

Reading text

If you think of the jobs robots could never do, you would probably put doctors and teachers at the top of the list. It's easy to imagine robot cleaners and factory workers, but some jobs need human connection and creativity. But are we underestimating what robots can do? In some cases, they already perform better than doctors at diagnosing illness. Also, some patients might feel more comfortable sharing personal information with a machine than a person. Could there be a place for robots in education after all?

British education expert Anthony Seldon thinks so. And he even has a date for the robot takeover of the classroom: 2027. He predicts robots will do the main job of transferring information and teachers will be like assistants. Intelligent robots will read students' faces, movements and maybe even brain signals. Then they will adapt the information to each student. It's not a popular opinion and it's unlikely robots will ever have empathy and the ability to really connect with humans like another human can.

One thing is certain, though. A robot teacher is better than no teacher at all. In some parts of the world, there aren't enough teachers and 9–16 per cent of children under the age of 14 don't go to school. That problem could be partly solved by robots because they can teach anywhere and won't get stressed, or tired, or move somewhere for an easier, higher-paid job.

Those negative aspects of teaching are something everyone agrees on. Teachers all over the world are leaving because it is a difficult job and they feel overworked. Perhaps the question is not 'Will robots replace teachers?' but 'How can robots help teachers?' Office workers can use software to do things like organise and answer emails, arrange meetings and update calendars. Teachers waste a lot of time doing non-teaching work, including more than 11 hours a week marking homework. If robots could cut the time teachers spend marking homework and writing reports, teachers would have more time and energy for the parts of the job humans do best.

Task 1

Exercise

Task 2

Exercise

Discussion

Would you like to have a robot as a teacher?

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B1 - Intermediate

I wouldn't. Because robots haven't got any emotions and experiences. When you are talking with your teacher, she/he can tell what did she do last weekend. As an example, our teacher tells his experiences. He uses his experiences to make an example but robots have no experiences about their personal life. Yes, you can say they know more than a person. Nevertheless, their knowledge is not their personal experience.

Vaybe!Perfect perception.

I would, I think a robot can be a good assistant in the future. Helping human nature to be more productively in performing daily work activities.

Thanks Lera for sharing such a cool site!

I wouldn't for myself parsonally.I think humanity is necessary for communication with teacher and student.They tought us a bonch of things except for study,For example ordinary talking skill and kindness.

I think it could be an interesting experience. After all, why do all these technologies exist? To help people working less and relaxing more. I predict robots at schools and Universities could be like PC at home - the sources of needed information during the lessons. Just imagine, they could visualize some information, that teachers saw to help the teachers to explain and the pupils to understand. If they can help making homework - it would be awesome. I think our teachers deserve some rest

No, I wouldn’t. Because it is difficult for a robot to do the teaching job. The reason is that robots have no emotions. Human beings have emotions and can praise and scold students. Students can grow because teachers can do it. But robots can’t do that. However, robots can reduce the burden on the teacher. I think the robot can make tests and score, so I might be good for teacher support. In the future, robots can be used, and if they are used successfully, work efficiency will increase. I’m looking forward to a future where we can do that.

I think it's suitable that robots teach depending on the time and the circumstances. Programs are built into the robots and they have a great of knowledge, so they can teach classes for students to gain knowledge, such as how to solve calculations and history. However robots have no heart and can't read people's feelings, so I think it's difficult for them to teach Japanese language and moral classes to students. The school's online system adopts a function called "Automatic scoring" and it helps teachers with a lot of work. Therefore robots could do the same. It may be impossible for robots to play a leading role but I think it's a good idea to work as a teacher's helper.

Rightly, I wouldn't. Maybe for helping our homework or explaining about science is suitable for having a robot teacher. However, I believe that strong relationships with teachers, ability of empthaty, talking about our future are more important than having a robots teachers. It will be almost all area of our life, but in strong and effectively education or emotional issues depend on the people who you are facing. So I think I wouldn't like to have a robot teachers altough It would be a very different experience maybe.

In my opinion robots could help to teachers doing some activities such as cleaning the board, ordering the books but not teaching specific academic knowledge because the human contact, gestures and speaking can´t be replace for a machine. The feedback is very importat in the learning process.