The Motivated Classroom

In this episode I explain how I build on those relationships built in the first few years of students' Spanish learning journey, taking those more advanced and older students to a new level as 'Government Ministers' in my (fake) country of Españoland. It provides them with autonomy and ownership over what we learn and the resources we will study together as a group. By empowering them to be members of your 'Government' it not only teaches them about democracy and leadership but also allows them to become real experts in their chosen 'Ministry' before those final exams. If you teach older teenagers who have more advanced level of language, this episode is for you! For full details a list of these strategies, check out the programme notes with further information and links to research and resources at www.liamprinter.com/podcast. Are you a regular listener and enjoying The Motivated Classroom podcast? Join me on my patreon page here.     Follow The Motivated Classroom on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation with the hashtag #MotivatedClassroom Keep sharing and spreading the word. I'd love to know what you think, please get in touch or leave me a review 🙏

'The Star of the Week' also known as 'The Special Person Interview' is a wonderful, zero-prep, activity that provides your students with huge amounts of compelling, comprehensible input as they learn about and make connections to their classmates and to the teacher. A beautifully simple activity that raises autonomy and is all about building bonds and a sense of community in the classroom. For full details a list of these strategies, check out the programme notes with further information and links to research and resources at www.liamprinter.com/podcast. Are you a regular listener and enjoying The Motivated Classroom podcast? Join me on my patreon page here.     Follow The Motivated Classroom on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation with the hashtag #MotivatedClassroom Keep sharing and spreading the word. I'd love to know what you think, please get in touch or leave me a review 🙏

When we have active, enthusiastic, engaged participation, it has the potential to over-spill and feel chaotic. So how do we encourage this high level of participation in class without it reaching a stage that begins to impact on our classroom management and behaviour expectations? In this episode, using evidence from the research, I offer my three key elements for effective classroom management in the motivated classroom: Routines Relationships Repetitions For full details a list of these strategies, check out the programme notes with further information and links to research and resources at www.liamprinter.com/podcast. Follow The Motivated Classroom on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation with the hashtag #MotivatedClassroom. Are you a regular listener and enjoying The Motivated Classroom podcast? Join me on my patreon page here.   Keep sharing and spreading the word. I'd love to know what you think, please get in touch or leave me a review 🙏

I had the pleasure to chat with the inspirational Joe Dale about three key apps and technology tips to boost motivation and engagement in the languages classroom. Joe is a globally renowned expert in language teaching and learning, with special interest in the use of technology as a means to develop proficiency and grow interest in learning the language.  For full details a list of these strategies, check out the programme notes with further information and links to research and resources at www.liamprinter.com/podcast. Follow The Motivated Classroom on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation with the hashtag #MotivatedClassroom. Are you a regular listener and enjoying The Motivated Classroom podcast? Join me on my patreon page here.   Keep sharing and spreading the word. I'd love to know what you think, please get in touch or leave me a review 🙏

Every subject, every syllabus, every curriculum has a story behind it. Its time we re-humanised the classroom and the curriculum. This episode focusses on how we can weave narrative back into our classes to engage our learners and have them come on a learning journey with us. During this episode I give a live example of how I take students into the curriculum using the 'four Ps' approach. Behind everything we teach in every subject there are: People Places Problems Possibilities When we focus on this and allow students to become immersed in the story behind our content, we engage and motivate them. We hook them into the learning so they feel part of it throughout the entire unit.  For full details a list of these strategies, check out the programme notes with further information and links to research and resources at www.liamprinter.com/podcast. Follow The Motivated Classroom on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation with the hashtag #MotivatedClassroom. Enjoying The Motivated Classroom podcast? Feel like you'd buy me a coffee once a month to say thanks for the episodes? Join me on my patreon page here. Keep sharing and spreading the word. I'd love to know what you think, please get in touch or leave me a review 🙏

This episode is all about putting Comprehensible Input (CI) into practice in the classroom. Three practical, minimal prep, CI activities are presented that you can try out right away. These are activities that will really help your learners to feel a sense of belonging in the class, whilst also boosting their competence as they can follow along and understand all of your input. I really encourage you to give them a try! Calendar Chat: Essentially using the date and day to provide lots of interesting input; what happened in history on this day, asking who has birthdays or important links to the numbers of the day etc. Picture talk: Using images to provide the class with lots of compelling input, works even better as a set of images that tells a basic or funny story. Humans love narrative and want to listen to understand and see what is happening. Movietalk: Using short clips with no words to give the class lots of understandable inputs at their level For full details a list of these strategies, check out the programme notes with further information and links to research and resources at www.liamprinter.com/podcast. Follow The Motivated Classroom on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation with the hashtag #MotivatedClassroom. Enjoying The Motivated Classroom podcast? Feel like you'd buy me a coffee once a month to say thanks for the episodes? Join me on my patreon page here. Keep sharing and spreading the word. I'd love to know what you think, please get in touch or leave me a review 🙏

This episode looks in detail at Stephen Krashen's Comprehensible Input (CI) hypothesis; where it comes from, the research behind it and why teaching with is so motivating for both students and teacher. This episode also aims to debunk and respond to some of the criticisms that have been leveled at Krashen's CI model, highlighting that his most fierce critics were writing in the 1980's just a few years after he published his ground-breaking "Principles and practice in second language acquisition" in 1982 and well before his CI theory had any time to be properly researched. Now, nearly 40 years later, vast amounts of robust research have empirically tested Krashen's CI theory and found it be accurate, understandable and most importantly, easy for teacher's to put into practice. Finally, the episode discusses what CI teaching actually looks like in the languages classroom and why CI activities are so motivating for students as well as their teacher. For full details a list of these strategies, check out the programme notes with further information and links to research and resources at www.liamprinter.com/podcast. Follow The Motivated Classroom on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation with the hashtag #MotivatedClassroom. Enjoying The Motivated Classroom podcast? Feel like you'd buy me a coffee once a month to say thanks for the episodes? Join me on my patreon page here. Keep sharing and spreading the word. I'd love to know what you think, please get in touch or leave me a review 🙏

The first Question & Answer episode deals with a variety of questions mainly relating to teaching languages and motivation. Thank you to the listeners for these great questions. There were many others I did not have time to get to but will answer them in the next Q & A episode. Teaching/learning for young children in a virtual 1:1 setting with a view to maintaining interest and enthusiasm for the language. How do kids of different age groups respond to different motivational strategies or triggers? How  to communicate and get an atmosphere going with masks and desks spaced out? How to be motivated as a teacher when the students won’t engage? Strategies to ensure students don't look up lots of random vocabulary in creative tasks that they'll never use again. For full details a list of these strategies, check out the programme notes with further information and links to research and resources at www.liamprinter.com/podcast. Follow The Motivated Classroom on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation with the hashtag #MotivatedClassroom. Enjoying The Motivated Classroom podcast? Join me on my patreon page here. Keep sharing and spreading the word. I'd love to know what you think, please get in touch or leave me a review 🙏

In this first interview episode I am joined by the inspiring and incredible @polyglotteacher Soukeina Tharoo. Soukeina is an English as an Additional Language (EAL) and French teacher as well as being the Home Language Coordinator at The International School of Lausanne in Switzerland. She is also a workshop leader & school visitor for the International Baccalaureate and a team evaluation member and Chair for the Council of International Schools. Soukeina was born in France but is originally from Madagascar, of Indian ancestry and was brought up in the UK. She speaks 11 languages (yes eleven) and is a fountain of wisdom when it comes to multilingualism, translanguaging and how we can leverage the home language in all classrooms to raise students' competence, relatedness and esteem.  For full details a list of these strategies, check out the programme notes with further information and links to research and resources at www.liamprinter.com/podcast. Follow The Motivated Classroom on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation with the hashtag #MotivatedClassroom. Enjoying The Motivated Classroom podcast? Join me on my patreon page here. Keep sharing and spreading the word. I'd love to know what you think, please get in touch or leave me a review 🙏

This episode focusses on 'competence', one of the three basic needs of Self-Determination Theory that we need satisfied in order to feel intrinsically motivated. Competence relates not to a student’s individual ability but to their perception about their capability and capacity to achieve success in the classroom. Central to the notion of competence, is that students will only engage in and personally value classroom activities they can fully understand and potentially master. After an introduction to the research behind the need of 'competence' in the classroom, a variety of practical approaches to building competence in the classroom are presented. For full details a list of these strategies, check out the programme notes with further information and links to research and resources at www.liamprinter.com/podcast. Follow The Motivated Classroom on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation with the hashtag #MotivatedClassroom. Enjoying The Motivated Classroom podcast? Join me on my patreon page here. Keep sharing and spreading the word. I'd love to know what you think, please get in touch or leave me a review 🙏