Abstract:

This study intends to identify the roles and competencies of the online teachers. In accordance with the aim of the study, online teachers were asked what kinds of roles they should adopt and what sorts of competencies they should have in order to facilitate the distant students' learning. The attitudes, skills and facilities of the online teachers are called as "competencies".

The study has been conducted with a descriptive method. The study group has consisted 20 online teachers of Anadolu University Distance English Language Teaching Program (DELT).

The data has been gathered by the researcher with a questionnaire titles as "The Roles of Online teachers and Competencies for Online Teachers". The data was gathered in April, 2003. The statistical findings have been obtained via "SPSS" (Statistical Program for Social Sciences).

The data of the research revealed that the online teachers do not take the roles which they find necessary to adopt in online medium, and they think they do not have the necessary competencies for online teaching. Thus, a training program via which the online teachers be recruited has been suggested.

Keywords:

Online Education, Competencies, Roles.