Like many adult ESL instructors, the author has felt firsthand the challenges of creating community in short-term courses. Through his experience, he has noticed that in order to successfully build community in short-term ESL courses, teachers need to lay a foundation for social contracts and social covenants from the first day of the course and then take consistent steps to strengthen these commitments throughout the course. In this chapter, the author briefly discusses the nature of social contracts and social covenants as a basis for building community in short-term ESL courses. He then discusses the timely and consistent application of practices and techniques that can strengthen social contracts and social covenants in order to develop community in short-term ESL courses.