Applying contracts and online communities to promote student self-regulation in English learning at the primary-school level

This research is designed to find out whether joining an online community combined with contract learning can enhance the learning motivation of students, promote their self-regulated learning, and improve their academic achievements. In this regard, quasi-experiment research was conducted at primary level students in which the experimental group has joined a Contract Learning Online Community (CLOC), whereas the control group was taught by normal teaching method. To get in-depth knowledge about participants’ attitudes toward the CLOC, the researcher interviewed the students of the experimental group. The results indicate that the learning motivation and achievement of students in the experimental group are higher than those of students in the control group. Moreover, applying contract learning to an online learning community promotes the students’ self-regulated learning and enables them to benefit from English learning in primary school. The outcome of this study shows a rosy picture for the education stakeholders to make English language learning more effective and to encourage students for the determination of self-regulated learning.