Robot teachers

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

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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.

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Task 2

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Discussion

Would you like to have a robot as a teacher?

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B1 Intermediate

Yes, robot teacher will be very useful, if it can be very intelligent and creative. We can have it at home, and we learn all things very fast, especially English language.

Personally, I really want robot teachers help marking homework. It's very useful and make me more less time to do the job everyday. I totally agree with that idea. I hope they will create robot teachers soon. Not only for helping marking homework. It can also help detect students who intend to cheat the test, by detect postures or their eyes. Sorry for my bad English.

well, I think that a robot is not the same as a human,they do not have emotions and they are not capable to deal with problems as a human do,it is and interesting idea though

I think having a robot teacher have two sides the positive side is everything will be scheduled students will know everything that they should studied but the negative sides that students awlays have a special relationship with teachers it’s emotional and robots will not effort that.

It seems to me that the idea of "robot teacher" is envisioned on the inside of a traditional concept of the teacher's job, for example, when I read "... robots could cut the time teachers spend marking homework and writing reports". But I think actually the teacher's job is changing, as well as the acquisitions of the modern education theories show us. Therefore I think the use of the robots in the school ought to be considered from these point of view.

Robot teachers help human teachers with a lot of work. They help teachers do not waste their time to mark homework. It is a good idea. But I think teachers not only give us knowledge in textbook but also give us experience in their life. Robot teachers do not show their emotion so students will get boring. They also do not understand students as human.

Well, it could be a good idea but only for a short period of time a mean like a experiment, because for me, human teachers always will be better interacting with people and his emotions, because at the end of the day, they are human beings talking to human beings.

Hi all members. I think its very interesting idea but robot teacher cannot thinking as human. Robot teacher gives a lot of information but cannot understand children as human.

In my opinion, its a very interesting idea, I agree with the part that the teachers waste many time marking homework and writing reports instead of crating innovating ideas for their students, that for me it’s the part more important in that work.