Activation of students’ motivation to learn a foreign language

Abstract

This study deals with the problems related to students’ motivation for learning foreign languages. The purpose of the article is to identify the main enrollees’ goals that encourage them to entry universities for studying foreign languages, to define the concept "motivation" and determine internal and external motives for learning a foreign language in order to organize educational and methodological work. Efficiency of training depends on the motivation and internal attitudes of the one who is trained, so the motivational sphere has great importance in the organization of effective training. The relevance of the study is caused by the need to identify value directions and motivation for studying of foreign language in the context of training effective competent professionals – philologists of foreign languages and translators. The methodological bases for writing the article were the works of many scientists in the field of psychology and pedagogy, in general (I. Bondar, O. Kolot, S. Shapiro, V. Shinkarenko, V. Aseev, L. Bozhovich, D. Bruner, V. Vilyunas, M. Matyukhina, E. Thorndike, G. Shchukina et al.), as well as directly in the study of foreign languages (N. Aristova, E. Luzik, Yu. Passova, O. Pylypiv, I. Prokopenko et al.). The main method of empirical research is a survey of the first-year-students according to the method of S. Paulina and S. Ketko. The main external and internal motives for entering a philological faculty alongside the essence and content of motivation to learn a foreign language in the psychological and pedagogical context were revealed as a result. Some effective teaching/learning methods were singled out: team work, educational discussions, use of the Internet resources, etc. Their implementation into the educational process ensures the activation of motivation and students’ stable positive attitude to learning a foreign language. The paper suggests theoretical and practical perspectives and directions for future research.