About this episode

This episode discusses strategies for starting a new school year, focusing on classroom setup and student motivation during the first week of classes.

How do you start a new school year? What exactly do you do in the first week or so of classes? How do you set up your class and do the boring admin tasks but keep it motivating ? How do you build motivation among new students? These are some of the most commonly asked questions from patrons and listeners of the Motivated Classroom podcast so in this episode I attempt to answer some of them. I take you through, step by step, what exactly happens in my language acquisition classes during those critical first few days of lessons both with new and returning students... talking about seating plans, admin tasks, first CI activities, homework and more. Please let me know what you think! Keep in touch and share widely! Full programme notes are available on ⁠⁠⁠www.liamprinter.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠ . Follow The Motivated Classroom on Instagram ⁠⁠⁠@themotivatedclassroom⁠⁠⁠ , Twitter ⁠⁠⁠@motclasspodcast⁠⁠⁠ and Facebook ⁠⁠⁠@themotivatedclassroom⁠⁠⁠ . I'd love to know what you think, please get in touch! Join the conversation with the hashtag #MotivatedClassroom. Enjoying the podcast? Leave a review on ⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠ . Become a Patron of The Motivated Classroom podcast on…

People in this episode

Host: Dr. Liam Printer

Topics covered

• starting a new school year
• classroom setup
• student motivation
• language acquisition
• admin tasks
• first week of school

Keywords

• school year
• classroom management
• student engagement
• language classes
• first week activities
• motivation strategies

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The Motivated Classroom, Apple Podcasts, Facebook, patreon.com, Instagram, Twitter

Places: www.liamprinter.com

More episodes of The Motivated Classroom

• 106 ¦ Connections and competence: The third week of the year and beyond · May 4, 2026 · 30 min
• 105 ¦ Relationships, relatedness and routines: The second week of the year · May 4, 2026 · 31 min
• 102 ¦ Maintaining motivation right until the end of the year · May 3, 2026 · 34 min
• 101 ¦ Respecting and amplifying all languages in our multilingual classrooms with Dr. Eowyn Crisfield · May 3, 2026 · 32 min
• 100 ¦ Self-determination theory, motivation and language learning with Dr. Richard Ryan · May 2, 2026 · 34 min
• 99 ¦ Raising language learner motivation with Dr. Kimberly Noels · May 1, 2026 · 32 min

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