Class jobs

A staple in elementary classrooms since forever, class jobs have in recent years been increasingly part of world language teachers’ classrooms too! It makes sense! We have pretty intense teaching responsibilities, and if we can get some of the less-important things off our plates, it frees us up for other things. Here’s how I implement class jobs in my room:

First of all, it is important to sell it to the students. Explain to them how this classroom belongs to all of us, and the more we all pitch in, the smoother everything will go. Many teachers leave it at this, but I like to sweeten the deal a bit. I let them know that if their grade is very close to the next grade and within “rounding up” range, I will review their classroom job reflection sheet to decide if their contribution to the class made them worthy of the “round up.” I also sometimes hold little competitions between hours to see who is keeping the classroom running the most smoothly!

In preparation for rolling out the jobs to my students, I set up some procedures. First, I made a class jobs station. I took one of those free-standing file-folder holders and put a folder in it for each class as well as a master folder to hold things like attendance sheets. A large binder would work well for this too! I made a class list for each class, with numbers next to each student’s name. I made an attendance sheet simply with a space for the date, and a square for each period. I made a book check-out sheet. I made a movie times sheet.

I assigned the jobs. I went over what all the various responsibilities were, and then I had students write down which jobs they were interested in.

Class boss – this is the student who is in charge of checking the work of all the other students and communicating with me if there are problems. I tried not having a class boss last semester and I found it was not good. That student really was critical to the operation!

Attendance taker – take attendance on paper and place on my desk within the first 10 minutes. Make notes if someone comes in late or leaves.

Chromebook team (2-3 students) – get chromebook cart from wherever it is and bring it to us. Plug chromebooks in. Monitor student taking and returning. Make sure correct chromebook numbers are distributed. Return chromebooks to media center.

Class librarian – keep book shelves straightened and class readers in their bin neatly. Manage the book checkout and return system.

Lights and projector technician – lights on, projector on. Lights off, projector off.

Furniture keeper – straighten up the furniture in the room at the end of the hour.

Floor keeper – pick up trash.

Paper distributor – return papers to students when we have an extra 2 minutes.

Pencil pusher – in charge of making sure my borrow-a-pencil cup stays full. They get to have access to my top secret stash of extra pencils.

Other jobs were assigned as needed, and some classes had jobs that didn’t exist in other classes.

Many teachers add in “fun” jobs. I like to do this too, but they tend not to be consistent from class to class. Some other possible jobs might be:

Day/date/weather person – If you have a class calendar, especially if you discuss it, this is a great thing to assign to a student! Here is a FREE calendar and weather set for Spanish teachers that I made.

Greeter – greet anyone who walks in and assist them. Answer the phone too.

Actors – Don’t feel obligated to have a wide variety of kids acting (unless you teach elementary!). Make it a job and make them do it well!

Prop manager – assign a student to be in charge of your bins of props, and if they are good at it, they can give props to actors too.

Language monitor – monitor teacher and class’ use of non-target language.

Artist – draw things that need to be drawn.

Sound effects – assign a particular sound effect to a certain kid. Also useful to have a particular kids with a sound app on his phone who can pull up a sound you need quickly.

Have you used class jobs in your classroom? Are there additional jobs you’d add to this list?

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