Teachers [Abdessalami]

A student normally invokes a teacher. The natural environment for both teachers and students is the classroom. The students join the teacher to the classroom because they have their own reasons. The main reason is generally seeking knowledge. The teacher’s duty is to understand that very reason and rolls up sleeves to work on it. So between students and learning there is the teacher who can help them satisfy their needs and reach their goals. The students’ goals seem much easier for the teacher to accomplish if they are clearly known to her, which is not the case in our educational system. Goals are still blurring for most students. Therefore, the teacher’s work could end up to nothing because she works on intangible bases. Moreover, the students’ behavior towards their duty becomes more a matter of routine. Consequently, they quickly feel bored. They are not motivated, as the labor market does not require the sort of education they obtain.

On this basis, a teacher is more a necessity than a luxurious decoration in a computer assisted class or a machine which is programmed to do a fixed task. The teacher's role however is neither to spoon-feed the students nor just to transmit knowledge mechanically. It is primarily showing students the best way to learning by teaching them the strategies they should adopt toward learning, to be self-reliant. It emphasizes an active responsible and investigative approach to self-study and learning. In brief, the teacher acts as a guide in the classroom. No one can guess what is beyond the horizon of post-school where those same students are left alone to confront their destiny. The Chinese proverb styles it this way,"The teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself".

Robots or Teachers ?

In spite of all the progress that technology has known recently, it seems quite hard for it to completely invade the classroom kingdom. It is true that technology has participated a lot in ameliorating and bettering the conditions of work in classroom settings, (the very source of its own development and progress). It also takes part in the making of successful lessons through enriching them with paralinguistic materials such as Audio-visual aids, Software and Internet. Nevertheless, it cannot go farther than that as to replace the teacher, for example. Its efficiency is not that powerful as to allow it to run a class by itself.

Therefore the old noble role of the teacher proves to be impenetrable and more a necessity than a luxury. When technology tried to play the teacher-figure artificially, it failed because teaching is not only the act of transmitting information and knowledge. It is, far more than simply that, a mixture of different sensations, feelings, looks, smiles, emotions, stimulus and response which the rigid technology, despite its apparent intelligence, lacks greatly. In brief, teaching is a complicated interactive task which only Man can perform. Consequently the teacher could not only be but a human being. Teaching is more an art which consists initially of feelings that technology doesn't and will never have.

Thus teaching is perhaps the sole activity where technology can only provide furtherance and support but cannot manage or practice wholly. There are things in the teacher's job that only specialized human beings can understand and react to accordingly relying on the love they have for their noble task. Technology misses that love which is the backbone of giving and not expecting to take. In a word, sacrifice. If technology is looked upon as a means to better what is good, Wordsworth said,"Love betters what is best.".

I'm deeply convinced that the teacher's role have become compulsory and increasingly important in the modern societies. Thus, teachers will certainly succeed where politicians have failed. Teachers gain no profits from the on going phenomenon of polluting our planet through emitting toxic gases and radioactivity in the air. That's why teachers can bridge the gaps between all people from the four corners of the world so as to understand each other and communicate their thoughts about issues which concern them all to eventually become one to face the danger that is surely coming. Don't teachers propagate nobleness before any other device?

A teacher of English, particularly, participates a lot in the reconciliation of many peoples all over the world and gathers them to face the challenges which threaten their lives. Our planet becomes as a village, doesn't it? What affects a country will automatically contaminate its neighbors. Chernobyl (Ukraine) major disaster at a nuclear power plant (16 April 1986), is just an example.

ESP is the teacher's main power to bring together these people to exchange ideas about issues of major interest such as the shortage of water, pollution, global warming, Ozone layer thinning, poverty, cloning, genetic engineering, racial cleansing and so on...

E.S.P. is clearly a magic tool that teachers can manipulate efficaciously to eventually bring up the sharing of views through rational discussions. ESP is meant to do that and more. It fosters expertise and specialized curricula among ESP practitioners especially if they adopt (ESP IS):English for Specific Purposes Interest Section. The English Language used in this branch of ESP is the international language able to make people of the world listen to each other and stop just talking non-sense. On this basis the teacher is the messenger of knowledge, understanding, love, peace, and humanity (respectively). Because the teacher should always be a human being, technology will just keep aloof in case it is needed for help. The teacher is able to make people control technology and not vice versa.