- 07 Aug, 2025
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What Motivates People to Learn a Foreign Language?
Learning a foreign language is not only the key to a promising future, but also greatly benefits the student. After all, the learning process develops memory, multitasking skills, communication skills, and creativity. So how can we motivate children to learn a foreign language by turning it into a hobby?
The main goal of foreign language learning is for students to master the ability to communicate in that language. Quite often, students are reluctant or afraid to speak English, and despite all efforts, they do not engage in conversation. The reasons for this may be fear of making mistakes, not knowing what to talk about, or a limited vocabulary. Therefore, it is very important to identify the cause in a timely manner and try to offer tasks that are suitable for a particular student or group. After all, everyone has their own topic that they would like to talk about and share.
Any topic can be made interesting if you connect it to the student’s personal interests, opinions, or preferences. For example, when studying the topic “Past Simple,” you can ask about their past vacations, travels, etc.
Learning a language should not be associated with strict discipline, incomprehensible tables, and diagrams. It is essential that the learning process is engaging and that each lesson is eagerly anticipated by the child. Therefore, it is always beneficial to emphasize that knowledge of English opens up a whole world with its own cultural characteristics and traditions, as well as to assign creative homework assignments that the student will want to complete. For example, if we are studying the Future Simple tense, students can prepare several sentences about the upcoming weekend. Creative and interesting homework assignments can be devised for any grammatical or lexical topic.
English teachers often joke that they know practically everything about their students’ lives: where they live, what they like to read, eat, where they hang out, what they did last summer, etc. Every professional teacher whose goal is to engage students begins by answering the question: “How does this student live?” This knowledge helps to structure lessons in such a way that children find them interesting and often say: “Oh, this is my favorite topic!” or “The lesson flew by!”
And, of course, it is very important to praise students for their successes and interest in learning, because this always motivates them to continue working hard.
General English teacher at Lingua Language Center
Yuliya Kostina