Step out of your comfort zone. You are the biggest motivator and the one who determines the tone of the classroom. If your students are not excited about English, show them how excited you are about English and they naturally will follow suit. Students learn by example, so put on a smiling face when entering your classroom. If you are dragging, the kids will be drag too.
Break the ice. Talk to your students and show them that you are genuinely interested in them. Your kids could be facing situations like a struggling single parent, absent parents, teenage pregnancy, gangs, unfulfilled basic needs, outside commitments or being a caretaker for younger siblings. Try to pick up on details about your students' lives and if you notice a student is going through a particularly difficult time, talk to her after class and make sure she knows there are counseling services available at the school. Let her know you understand that it's difficult to balance school and personal life sometimes. Be willing to work with students on things like deadlines if they are willing to put forth the effort to earn a good grade.
Change things up. Find out what the kids are interested in and build a project around that. For example, hold an amended American Idol class where students present scenes from a play and other students act as judges. Or ask you students to film a movie acting out a chapter or scene from a play or book, but let them be creative and add characters like zombies or vampires to the original work. Assign a project work day, where the students will get time to work on the projects in class.
Establish a reward system. Inner-city students might be prone to negative classroom behavior, so counteract that by offering positive reinforcement for good behavior. It doesn't have to be something extravagant; candy works well, as do homework passes, movie days and classroom parties.