Class contract: make it work

Do you know this feeling, when you start a new school year? Full of beans, with resolutions, like I will only speak  English, I will never get impatient with my students, this year will be soooooo different. And somehow, it all works pretty well until October or November, when you’re so tired that you can’t even bother to stick to your resolutions.

I was pretty much the same, and it took some time for me to realise that there is something I can use to avoid the unavoidable frustration when all the NewYearNewMe vibe is gone. And it’s a simple class contract, something we all know, but somehow it is pretty underappreciated.

A well applied class contract will make your teaching way easier not only during the first class, when you and your students design the contract, but also throughout the whole school year. You have a set of rules that both sides declare to follow, and the only thing you need is consequence. And, you will need to be the one consequent person, as obviously you can’t expect your students to stick to the rules that will make their lives a little bit harder.

Unless, of course, you’ve got some tricks up your sleeve – but that is something I am going to share.

So, let’s start with the contract itself. You’re going to find a lot of useful contracts on the Internet, usually applied to the younger learners. However I sincerely encourage you to create a separate contract for every single group of students, or individual pupils, you work with. Make it a habit of yours. While I can share some useful places where you may find good class contract inspirations (like Twinkl, British Council or Proud to Be primary), the only true and proper contract is the one designed by you and your students in the class, from scratch.

If you haven’t designed your own contract yet. You may ask what exactly am I supposed to put in here? The answer is very simple: everything you need to run your class smoothly. From my experience the most important rules concern the following issues:

English in the classroom

Naturally, the first thing that springs to a teacher’s mind is use English only. However, I wouldn’t always go with this rule. Think about the lower levels, for whom using English only would be discouraging, not supporting. For levels like A1/A2, I would rather rephrase the rule and go with use as much English as you can, and if you don’t know how to express yourself ask if you can use your mother tongue. This option sounds more sensible, doesn’t it? After all, nobody wants to end up with a rule that will be broken from the start. Similarly with children, you cannot expect them to use English only, but you may design a classroom rule that will support using English as much as they can. With kids, and lower level students in general, spend some time trying to devise the rule that will not be broken so easily, like English – spoken aloud, mother tongue – whisper only.

Behaviour

I think it’s hard to define what a good and bad behaviour is. For some teachers shouting and laughing uncontrollably are the signs of bad behaviour, and while I respect this point of view, I’ve always appreciated my classes to be on a lively side. The rules concerning behaviour I’ve tried to put in my class contracts mostly refer to being a decent human being, which means not interrupting others when they’re speaking, not hurting others verbally and physically, being polite even on Monday mornings… And the last part refers mostly to myself, because that’s the idea behind the class contract: it applies not only to students but also to a teacher, so you should be careful which rules you are going to write down!

Learning

Do you expect your students to be always prepared for the class? Do you want them to do every homework you assign? Or maybe you want them to use an application you recommend? Whichever you choose, make sure to write it down in the class contract – and this area should be carefully negotiated. You cannot realistically expect your students to always complete all the homework, sometimes they’ll forget about it, sometimes they’ll simply have too much on their plate – these things happen to everyone, even to you. As I previously mentioned, don’t make the rules that are bound to be broken. Make them realistic.

Goals

In order to make a class contract relevant, you need to add some personalization, and what’s better than adding a personal learning goal? Ask your students to write a short goal they want to achieve during that course,. It may be playing games in English, reading an English book, buying something in English, etc. I’m sure your students will appreciate that personal touch as that will show them you care not only about your teaching but also about their learning. Moreover, this is a great opportunity for you to explain the difference between completing the coursebook and reaching the goal.

And that’s it. Or maybe, that’s the easy part. Creating a class contract during the first class, when everyone is motivated and happy to work, is a great activity. You make a cool poster with the contract, hang it on the wall where it looks really motivating… And then comes the routine, grammar revisions, vocabulary drills and all the exercises we love. And that’s when everyone forgets the class contract and simply tries to survive. So, what can you do to make the class contract really work for you?

• Revise it once in a while: take the poster off the wall, read it aloud and decide with your students which rules have worked well for your group, and which should be revised and readjusted.
• Refer to the contract regularly: use the rules as examples for grammar constructions, try to make them as common in the classroom as possible. Encourage students to use them as examples in their exercises etc.
• Monitor the goals: once in a while talk with your students about their goals and refer to the goals they wrote in the contract. Have they changed their goals? Or maybe they need some readjustments? Either way, this will give you an opportunity to check the contract.

I hope you like my ideas and you will find them useful in your classroom. Maybe you are using class contracts already? Do you have any tips on how to refer to them not only the beginning of the school year but also later on? If yes, share them in the comments!