Classroom Time Management Essay

Obviously, the contemporary teaching is quite a complicated process that is primarily focused on individual approach to each student. The latter is an essential condition of successful teaching. This is why it is extremely important to take into consideration individual students characteristics, especially in making critical pacing decisions.

In this respect, it should be said that a class consisting of 25 students with diverse backgrounds also needs an approach to students with a particular focus on socio-cultural background. Practically, it means that it is very important to take into consideration students backgrounds when a teacher makes a decision to move from daily review and checking of prerequisites to new content and from guided practice to independent practice. Basically in a mono-cultural class the pacing would easier since the class mentality would be quite homogeneous, while in a culturally diverse class, along with certain psychological peculiarities of each student, it is also necessary to pay a lot of attention to their culture and mentality.

It means that in the given classroom Vietnamese and Japanese students would be more focused and accustomed to drills and constant reviews and checking and would prefer to be guided, to the extent that they could hardly work independently. On the other hand, local students and Costa Ricans, being to a certain extent culturally close since they are representatives of Western civilization and lifestyle, would perceive the pacing from review and checking to new content and from guided to independent practice easier than oriental students. Moreover, Costa Ricans would even prefer independent practice to guided practice more readily than representatives of other socio-cultural groups within the class.

Consequently, in such a situation oriental students would need more time to pacing than other students. Practically, it means that they would need to develop skills to faster pacing from review to new content and also it is necessary to stimulate their independent work. At the same time other students should also get used to be ready to change the pacing in order to make the work of the class more solid and unanimous. In other words they would probably need to slow down a little bit in pacing from review to new content and guided practice to independent one. Moreover, Costa Ricans would probably need more guided practice though it should be not a direct guidance but a guidance in which they could be relatively independent or at least they should feel like being independent.

However, it is also important to point out that language is also a very important tool in education and local students would be faster in pacing than students from Vietnam, Costa Rica and Japan. In fact, Vietnamese, Costa Ricans and Japanese would need more review and guided practice but gradually the difference would be minimized as their language skills grew.

Thus, it is obvious that the class would face certain difficulties because of some learner and content difficulties caused by the socio-cultural diversity and language skills that naturally influences the lesson pacing. Obviously, some students would need more time for pacing than others this is why certain shift in pacing would occur but it is highly recommended to develop the pacing that would correspond to the needs of the whole class, i.e. slower for the local students and faster for Vietnamese, Japanese and Costa Ricans with poor language skills.

Bibliography:

1. Glatthorn, A. The principal as curriculum leader. 2nd ed.: Corwin Press, 2002.
2. Hofmeister, A. and M. Lubke. Research Into Practice: Implementing Effective Teaching Strategies. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999.
3. Marsh, C., & G. Willis. Curriculum: alternative approaches, ongoing issues. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall, 1995.
4. Parkays F.W. and G. Hass. Curriculum Planning, LA: Allyn and Bacon, 2000.
5. Rosen, Sidney (ed.). My Voice Will Go With You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson, M.D., New York: Touchstone, 1991.
6. Rudduck, J Chaplain R and Wallace G (eds.) School Improvement: What Can Pupils Tell Us? London: David Fulton, 1996.