Time Management (A) Lesson pacing in the classroom is extremely important. The reason it is so vitally important is because it lends purpose, direction, and structure to the classroom. Teachers, of course, need to develop lesson plans which meet certain educational objectives. Teachers could accomplish this with a nice long lecture with a follow-up question/answer session. However, they also need to keep the students engaged, interested, and retaining the information. Teachers don't really want a Ferris Bueller's Day Off classroom scenario..."Anyone?...Anyone?", nor do students. Okay, that's fine. A teacher could incorporate tons of interaction and many different activities into the lesson. Here's lies the rub...they need to do all of this in 45 minutes. Lesson pacing ensures that the teacher can accomplish all of these classroom needs. (B) One might think that if a class includes English Language Learning (ELL) students, then the pacing of the lesson would need to slow significantly. However, this is not necessarily the case. Of course it will need to slow some to allow for language clarification and to allow the ELL students time to translate in their heads. The pacing really just needs a little change-up. Direct instruction should be in more simplified language and with more interaction. The use of visual aids and graphic organizers should be incorporated into direct instruction. Direct instruction also need not be given in one big chunk. Breaking it up into smaller bite-sized pieces which sandwich discussions, small group activities and hands-on or real-world applications and tasks, makes the lesson content easier to swallow for ELL students, while not necessarily slowing the pace of the lesson too significantly. Less emphasis should be placed on individual, independent class work and more should be placed on the various described instructional activities. This is because these types of activities will help to break language barriers and improve the students' English language acquisition, whereas, simply completing worksheets, etc., independently, does not. If the lesson is well planned and prepared, moving among these different aspects should be seamless and smooth. (C) Of course, complexity of a lesson has a major influence on lesson pacing even with high-achieving native English-speaking students, so obviously it will have a major influence on lesson pacing in a class that includes ELL students. For example, a fairly simple, straightforward lesson about the similarities among the inner (terrestrial) planets will have a much faster pace than a more complex lesson concerning dark matter. First of all, vocabulary concerning the inner planets will need far less explanation and clarification than that concerning dark matter. Next, the concepts which would be taught concerning the inner planets are very straightforward concepts that can easily be broken down into simplistic language, and which most students, no matter where they are from, have studied before to some degree or other. However, dark matter is a very complex subject matter, not easily broken down into simplistic language. This means that a lot more explanation, language clarification, visual aids, discussions, interaction, small group activities, and hands-on or real world applications and tasks need to be incorporated in order to break the language barrier which may prevent these students from understanding this subject matter. This will of course slow down the pace significantly, perhaps stretching the lesson over two or three days, rather than the one which would be spent on the inner planets. However, this slow pace will not be to the detriment of the English-speaking students since these many activities will also work at keeping these students engaged.