Online teaching: Insufficient application of technology Balachandran Vadivel a,⇑ , M. Mathuranjali b , Nawroz Ramadan Khalil a a Department of English, Cihan University - Duhok, Kurdistan Region, Iraq b Department of English, Agurchand Manmull Jain College, Chennai, India article info Article history: Received 23 December 2020 Received in revised form 23 December 2020 Accepted 17 January 2021 Available online xxxx Keywords: Insufficient technology ELT Applications Bridge Online teaching Artificial Intelligence abstract Technology, in the year 2020, has attained its utmost use by becoming the solution for people across the world in all sectors. Despite the use of applications like Zoom, Google Meet, Kahoot, and Google Classroom, teaching language online has proved to be a challenging task without the presence of a live teacher. This paper aims to throw light on the technological gap and its pace that has not matched the necessity of the period. The analysis of an example from the English Language Teaching will not show what technology lacks in this field, but also serve as a guidance for the developers of future artificially intelligent software and applications. As teaching and computing are two different fields, it is the researchers’ duty to bridge the gap by meticulously explaining the limitations in the currently existing applications and the necessary features in the yet to be developed ones. Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Emerging Trends in Materials Science, Technology and Engineering. 1. Introduction 1.1. Can a machine ever replace a teacher? From the times when information, knowledge and wisdom were taught by mere word-of-mouth, we had moved to gaining those via books. However, throughout, there had and has always been a teacher- a person. Despite astounding inventions and changes across the world during every era, the field of education has not witnessed much revolutionary transformations. Science has always surprised us with things unimaginable and hence one cannot set boundaries to the transitions expected in the future. The farthest some students have imagined is to insert the knowl- edge one wishes to gain using a chip or some easy and advanced method as per the brain capacity available in each person, without taking any effort from the students’ side. This way, student could save the time required to gain theoretical and practical knowledge, and go ahead exploring the world and create or invent things. This thought might have been crazy and hilarious many years ago, but now we all do know that it is highly plausible in the near future. Afterall technology is all about reducing human’s workload. In fact, that is what it did when it comes to audio-visual media, which has started to replace books. Be that as it may, that progress does not suffice a field that is the root for future scientists, doctors and lead- ers. Or, may be, the technology has advanced enough but has not been directed towards education [1–16]. 2. Research structure In a recent issue of the journal Learning, Media and Technol- ogy, the Covid-19 ‘pandemic politics, pedagogies and practices characteristic of education in 2020 0 have been discussed and reflected upon elaborately, calling for further research on apply- ing technology for education and media [17]. Education is a vast field to consider for exemplifying any thought or idea. Hence, this paper takes English Language teaching to point out the drawbacks in current online teaching facilities. It aims to recom- mend the necessary aspects to focus while building the future mode of education. These aspects will not be futuristic-as they are not ideas-but points to be given importance to, in the case of education. An example of an application that guides in error-free writing has been provided and analysed under various perspectives [19]. Moreover, a survey was conducted to elucidate this research statement. Although teaching Science, Mathematics or other subjects is possible using the currently available applications without much strain, teaching language has been a challenge for the teachers around the globe. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2021.01.454 2214-7853/Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Emerging Trends in Materials Science, Technology and Engineering. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: sasibalu83@gmail.com (B. Vadivel). Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Materials Today: Proceedings journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matpr Please cite this article as: B. Vadivel, M. Mathuranjali and Nawroz Ramadan Khalil, Online teaching: Insufficient application of technology, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2021.01.454