This empirical study aims to find out teachers’ roles in web-based autonomous English classes.Questionnaires and interviews show that teachers are expected to play various roles:advocate,counsellor,monitor,evaluator and mental coordinator.Although teachers and students share the same beliefs concerning the teachers’ roles,there’s a substantial gap between students’ expectation and teachers’ practices.The gap results from the traditional teaching beliefs,teaching model,teaching methods,the way of evaluation and teachers’ qualities.Suggestions are made from the following five aspects:setting up new beliefs,enhancing teachers’ qualities,instructing learning strategies,reforming monitor and evaluation process,attaching importance to students’ mental and affective health.