Motivation in ELT

Motivation is a property of the learner, but it is also a transitive concept: coaches can motivate their clients, teachers can motivate their students. Furthermore, it is dynamic and changes over time, especially in the usually long-drawn out process of language learning. Motivation is thus remarkably complex. For many years, studies of motivation for language learning concentrated on reasons for learning. Empirical evidence showed that for some people a wish to integrate, in some sense, with the speech community of the language being learnt seemed to be more strongly associated with success, while for others a wish to capitalize on the usefulness of knowing a language within the learners’ own culture was more effective. This was the distinction