2 ¦ The first class of the year: Co-creating a class constitution

I'm Liam Bridger and this is the Motivated Classroom. Guten Tag, Ola and Bonjour and of course Falcha in Irish, to episode two of this Motivated Classroom podcast. Thank you all for taking the time to download and listen to me Ram Blahn and it was lovely actually seeing a lot of your comments from last week about self-determination theory and the constructs of autonomy, competence and relatedness and just how they made sense to you and also that you wanted to learn a little bit more about them. One of the really interesting comments that came out of that was a tweet and sense that was asking about autonomy support and can that not result in an unruly classroom. So the first thing to think about for this is autonomy support does not just mean allowing students to do whatever they want, whenever they want. It's very much to do its structured choice and it's to do with giving them interest and value and personalization of what they're doing. So it's not simply about saying what you guys want to do, okay let's do that. No, absolutely not, we're the professional in the room and there's a certain degree of autonomy that is okay that allows the students to feel like they're having a little bit of self-direction or they're having some say in what is going on. But without you letting the class get completely out of control, the classroom management piece is actually really important in self-determination theory in itself. So Ryan and Desi who are the creators of self-determination theory, they've recently brought out an update, I suppose you could call it, a 2020 paper which looks at the last 20 years of research into self-determination theory and they talk about autonomy support and structure as they call it and essentially the structure is the classroom management piece and they say that autonomy support of teaching which has been supportive and helping our students to engage with the material and be interested and see value in this. That works and will bring around more relatedness but if you want the competence piece to be there, there needs to be structure. I'm personally a comprehensive input teacher so I would say that I try my best to give lots of comprehensive input in the classroom when I'm teaching and we do that by co-creating stories and by inventing characters and reading little novels and all of these things of which there's a lot of autonomy there. Now of course, if you want to teach like this, it can get out of hand especially if there's no structure and if you are teaching in this way, you need students to be actively listening. So comprehensive input works when you're listening actively and you are acquiring the language naturally. Of course, you can be given all the comprehensive input you want but if the class isn't listening, sure there's not much point to do with that but you're not going to get very far. So yes, absolutely the classroom management piece is key and this ties in really well with what I had planned to talk about today which was the class constitution and this is how I start the very first lesson with all my classes, all age groups, all levels every single year. So one of the keys of the class constitution is that it is co-created between you and the students. Now obviously, don't tell the students but we get to direct how the class constitution looks. Yes, we are the professionals and we can direct the conversation and facilitate it to ensure that what is in the class constitution from our students are the kind of things that we want in there. Now, this is very different to just giving them a set of rules and expectations. That is what would be called as autonomy controlling or it would thwart or diminish intrinsic motivation right from the get go, whereas if you start off by co-creasing your constitution, then they feel like they're part of it. It's got that democracy piece to it. So on the first day, daily, of course, come in, sit down, they're nervous, they're on their best behavior, it's the first day, they're listening very intently. Now, we all know that does not last very long. So the class constitution starts out by addressing what type of a learning environment we want to have for the year. So when they come in on that first day, one of the first things I do is explain to them that they are no longer in school. They are in what I call a spanyoland, which is my country that I have invented where we speak Spanish. Now the younger kids, they actually believe for quite a while that there is a real country called a spanyoland. I try and be very convincing and say, "Oh yeah, no, it's a real country. I just can't tell you where it is now." What you are currently in is an embassy. So then we talk about an embassy and we say, "What is an embassy and someone will tell me that it is to do with, you know, if you go to an embassy, you are in that country." And I say, "Exactly that." So we all walk over to the door and I've got kind of like some black tape on the ground which represents the border into the embassy. This in itself creates some great conversation about borders and what does that mean, particularly with the younger kids. And they are all a little bit intrigued at this stage as to like, "What does it mean? What is a spanyoland? What is an embassy? What are we talking about here?" And it gets their interest right from the beginning. So we go on from that and I explain that they are now citizens of a spanyoland. Because of course, they come in with their own identities and their own histories and everything like that stays with them. But they are now also part of our own community which is spanyoland. And we need to come up with a constitution of how we are going to live by. This creates a really strong sense of belonging, a bond, a community to the class just by calling it something different. I also tell the younger students at this stage that if they make it through to year 12 which in our school is like the grade 11 and 12, so the final two years if they make it all the way to grade 12 or year 12 and year 13, they become department ministers of the government of a spanyoland. And I actually do that with my older students. They each of them takes an IB theme, so the IB is the international baccalaureate. They take one of their key themes like for example, sharing the planet, technology, human relations, equality, those type things. And they are a minister of that government department. And of course, the younger students are like, "Oh, that's really cool." The older kids are department ministers and I say they get to decide a lot of the content that is done. And if you stay with me for the next four or five years, you could get to that stage too. So how do we start off the classroom constitution? First thing I need to explain, I'm sure many of you are thinking, are you doing this in the target language or are you doing this in English? With my total beginners, so in my school that is age about 12, 11 or 12, what we call year eight, would be grade seven, they are total beginners. And with that class, I do it all in English. Now I can hear the gasps, you speak English. Yes, I do. On the first day, I use a double period and I speak in English. And I explain that to them. I say normally, we only speak Spanish in here or as much as possible in order for you to have as much time as you can around the language, but today I'm going to do this in English. Now that's for a variety of reasons. It builds relationships with the students right from the beginning. They understand them someone to talk to, they get a bit of my personality and also that it's not kind of super scary on that first day for them because for me that's really important. With all other groups, even level two, we do it entirely in Spanish. Obviously lots of scaffolding and they may say words in English or in their own language and they may translate between each other, but I will be speaking just in Spanish and bringing the discussion together in Spanish. So that's how we do it. Now some people would argue and say, well, that's 80 minutes last. You've lost 80 minutes of given compressible inputs and you've lost 80 minutes of target language. And you would be right to one extent, however, I feel like the 80 minutes that I give away or lose an advert to comments. For this creation of our class constitution, I win back so much more throughout the year because I don't have to deal with in the vast majority of cases, the classroom management issues, the low level chatter, the not listening, all those little things that we deal with throughout the year that take up five minutes of our every class or 10 minutes here, five minutes there and you're constantly fighting with the students to obey by your rules. Rather than doing that, I have spent the time at the beginning co-creating this constitution with them. So how do we go about doing it? What are the actual steps involved in the creation of the class constitution? So I separate the students into groups, depending on how many I have, usually a group of about three to four and they move around the classroom and there's big sheets of paper. So each group of three to four students starts off at a big sheet of paper and they split it into three. And in one of the sections, they write the word safe learning environment. And I just get them to talk to each other and brainstorm what that means to them. Now some of them will say things like safe in terms of not having wires on the ground or trip across or it not being too hot or too cold that they feel safe and but eventually some of them will start to talk about wanting to participate, other students not laughing at you and they'll eventually come up with the word respect. Now you'll be walking around and listening and you may see that one group hasn't written anything or they're just sitting there looking at each other and you may need to help that group and say what does it mean being safe, being comfortable in a classroom to you, what does that mean? And they will write down these things. So once they've done that first section, we stop and we have a class discussion and from each group I'll get a couple of words and I'll start to write them up on the board. This point is really key because this is their first interaction with you. They may know you from the year before, but it's it's really key at the relationship building. When you get their ideas, use words like thank you. That's really good. That's really, really nice. I hadn't thought of putting it like that before. Or if they say something like, oh, it's, you know, for me, when I feel like and ask a question, and then I might say something like, oh, that's nice. So would it be okay if I wrote down that it feels comfortable or non-threatening with that, with that sum up what you were saying? And when you do like that, and you rephrase their words into your words, they know you're co-creating. And they look at that and go and they see that little smile on their face and go, yeah, that is, that is what I was going for, non-threatening exactly. And you get this lovely group dynamic coming through and they realize that, oh, he actually likes when we participate. And he, he values it. He looks me in the eye and he says, thank you. And he puts it on the board and, oh, I'm going to give him some of my ideas. And you'll see those start to participate. And of course, what you're trying to get is out there that it's, it's a comfortable learning environment that we're confident we participate together. We don't laugh at each other. It's okay to make mistakes, all of those type of things. And eventually you need the word respect to come out. So if they haven't said it, you may need to tease that out and say, oh, I'm looking at this list. And for me, there's, there's one thing that's just not there. There's one that for me is really important and I don't personally feel safe in a classroom unless that word is there or unless that's there. And someone will eventually say the word respect. And then you jump on that. Yes, respect. That's just so important. I mean, what do you guys think? Would you feel, you know, safe or comfortable to contribute if your teacher didn't respect you or if your class right? And then no, no, no, you need respect. And then of course, you tease out what does respect actually mean? It's a word that we throw about all the time. But what is respect? And of course, they'll come up with things like, well, it's not laughing at others. It's listening intently. Oh, what's listening intently? What does that mean? So you tease out these options. And this may take 15 to 20 minutes. Then you move on to the next section, say, okay, I want all the groups to move to another sheet of paper. And in a second box, what you're going to do is write the word fun. Now what for you is a fun learning environment? What's a fun class? Think of some of the most fun classes you ever had. What takes place in there? And they'll talk in their little group. And then you do the same discussion exercise with them. They give you words back. You rephrase them and you say, yeah, absolutely. And again, you're looking for that word, respect, equality, listening to come out. And if they don't use the word respect, you may need to tease it out and say, well, for me, I'm not really having much fun if the teacher doesn't respect me. If I say something and he just shouts me down, I'm not going to have fun. I don't mind how I don't care how many games you're doing. If I don't feel respected, I'm not having fun. And you get that word out there again. Finally, the last section, they move around to another section. And this time you say, what does it mean to be a linguist? Now I changed this recently. I used to have that last section used to be, what does it mean to work well together? Now you could use that. But for me, it worked really well by asking them, what is a linguist? I raised the book, creating cultures of thinking by Ron Richard. And there's a section where they talk about the language we use with students. And rather than talking about work, you talk about learning and rather than talk about them and students, you talk about them as learners. And I thought to myself, wow, actually, if I just changed the language and the discourse and I say to my students, you're not students, you're linguists, you're special. You're different type of people. You actively want to learn a language. You actively want to communicate with people. You're a linguist. So they talk about these things. And what does it mean? And again, eventually they'll come up with things like listening intently. And of course, that's key to a comprehensive link through classroom. So I say, yes, linguists listen so much so that some linguists like myself, we often eavesdrop. And I know that's not a nice thing to do, but sometimes we can't help ourselves. If you're learning a bit of Portuguese and you hear Portuguese in the bus, being spoken behind you, I can't help but let my ear focus in on that and see, can I pick out any words? I know it's not the right thing to do, but I explain that's raw human. And because I'm a linguist, I focus in another languages. And they immediately have this kind of sense of, oh, wow, yeah, I'm a linguist. I'm a linguist here, I'm not just a student. So you're building this relationship, you're calling different terms. And again, we do the same thing up on the board and then they will come up with different words. I will eventually try and tease out the words, respect and listening and those things if I need to. And so now we have a board that's full of all these different words. And I'll start putting words around circles. If we've time, I might ask them, come up to the board and circle the most important words for you. And then we'll sit down. And usually you've got to the end of the class of this. And then I'll say to them, okay, so here, look at these words we have in circles, respect, listening, participation, not laughing at each other. Mistakes are okay. I talk about, I love juicy errors, juicy mistakes. When you give me a juicy mistake, it means that I haven't taught you something properly. And I need to go back and do that again. And that's not your fault, that's my fault. And that means that if you're making that mistake, probably loads of people are too. All these little things to try and build some relationships with them. Now, once we've brought all that together, I'll say, so if we do all these things, do you think we'll have a good year? Do you think you will enjoy learning Spanish here? And do you think you will be motivated and engaged? And they'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, they'll be nodding their heads. And then I'll say, if it's okay with you guys, I'm going to try and put this all together into one A3 page or a poster. And I'm going to ask you guys if I've accurately represented your thoughts. And then we're going to sign it as our constitution for what we're going to live by in this class. And so that's how we start the next class. I'll show it on the projector, the constitution and the way I've put it together. And then we will sign off on that. And I print it and it's up at the front of the room. And I explained to them, these are not rules I gave you. Who came up with these ways to live in our class? And they'll go weed it. Yeah, exactly. So you came up with these. You invented them. So now you really have to do your part and live up to them. And throughout the year, if there's some times when they're not meeting those expectations, quite simply, I just walk them towards the front of the board in silence. And I'll just point at our constitution on the wall to the area that I don't think they're doing. And I'll smile. And that's it. I don't say anything. They know we made this constitution. We're not currently doing it. And it does, of course, there are times throughout the year that you'll have to bring them back to that and explain, you made this not me. I didn't give you this. Why are we not living to the way that we want to live by right now? And that might be a five minute chat. But in general, I think they stick with it really well. The classroom management literature and research would show that there's three really important parts of classroom management. Clear expectations, consistent routines and strong relationships. By building the class constitution together with your students, you are hitting all of those three. The expectations are very clear. They've made them. They've written it themselves. There's consistent routines throughout your class throughout the year. And you have built these strong relationships from day one showing that you value their input. And even better, it's zero prep. You just need three sheets of paper, some groups, a whiteboard, an America, and your set. So that's the class constitution. And if you tune into the first episode, you'll know that this class constitution actually fits really well with intrinsic motivation. So as we spoke about in episode one, that is autonomy, competence and relatedness. They are the basic psychological needs. We need satisfied to be intrinsically motivated and do things out of interest and enjoyment. So there's autonomy, obviously in the classroom constitution, they're building it themselves. The competence is there because you are listening to them. You're taking on their ideas. They feel value. They feel like what they're saying is important that they're able to do it to give you the right answer that you're looking for. And of course, there's a really strong sense of relationship and relatedness to them. In the upcoming episodes, I'm going to be talking about each of these three constructs in a lot more detail. Next week, it'll be about autonomy, which a lot of the research would show that this is probably the most important of the three basic needs. And in order to really fulfill confidence and relatedness, you need to really hit the autonomy part. So we're going to look at that next week and how we can build autonomy into our language classroom and what strategies and approaches we can do in order to make students feel more autonomous. So I hope you'll tune into that and download again next week. Thank you so much to everybody who is listening in and for your comments and stuff on Twitter and on Instagram. It's great to get the support. And as always, we'll finish with some Irish. So Garamaha Guth Makarja. Garamaha Guth from last week is Thank You and Makarja is my friends. The Motivated Classroom Podcast is an original production by Lee Imprinter. I'm at Lee Imprinter on Twitter and my YouTube channel is Lee Imprinter at the Motivated Classroom. Full podcast notes with links to resources are available on my website LeeImprinter.com. For more, find and follow the Motivated Classroom Podcast on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Graphics and music are provided by Paul Mahan. Intro clips are thanks to the wonderful multilingual staff at the International School of Los Angeles.