When I started teaching in a small school in Berlin, the other teachers and I would always get up from our chairs in the break room right before classes started and yell, "It's showtime!" The idea was, our students were mostly adults who had just finished a long day at work, barely had time to eat dinner (if that), drove through traffic and were pretty tired, hungry and grumpy. Our job was to make them glad they made the effort to show up. We had enthusiasm, smiles, quick fun activities right off the bat and then jumped right into the lessons. Our students suddenly caught a second wind and there would be laughter, smiles and eager questions. To this day, I always hear a voice in the back of my head yell, "It's showtime!" whenever I bound into a classroom. We sometimes take it for granted that students show up in our classrooms - I think it is very important that you make them WANT to show up and make every start of every class be dynamic. Oh, and don't even think about sitting down at your desk for at least the first 15 minutes...walk around, go to the students, stand in the back of the room, keep moving, don't stop. I sometimes teach an entire class and never once sit at my desk! Trust me - try this approach and watch what happens BTW, my student retention rate has always surpassed every expectation, no matter where I have taught.