Dr. Liam Printer: Motivation, Storytelling, and What Actually Works in the Language Classroom

In this episode of The Language Lab Podcast, Will Marks is joined by Dr Liam Printer (International School of Lausanne, Switzerland) — French and Spanish teacher, instructional coach, researcher, and host of The Motivated Classroom podcast.

Liam unpacks why story, narrative and co-creation are far more than “fun activities” and how, through the lens of Self-Determination Theory (autonomy, competence, relatedness), they can dramatically shift motivation, classroom culture and even behaviour. We talk about how he discovered TPRS / comprehensible input approaches in an international school setting, what his doctorate revealed (including a surprising turnaround in a famously demotivated IB class), and why he’d happily wave a magic wand and bin testing for grammatical accuracy (at least in the early years).

You’ll also get loads of practical, teacher-realistic takeaways: low-prep routines, brain breaks vs body breaks, choral response, and quick retrieval ideas that don’t require laminating your life away.

We finish with what’s next for Liam: a children’s book project (Captain Super Sleep) and his upcoming Hachette Learning book Motivation Matters: Practical Solutions for the Languages Teacher (expected around summer 2026).

Links
The Language Lab Podcast website (episodes, transcripts, resources): https://www.languagelabpodcast.co.uk