The role of motivation in an english learning project

Abstract

This present essay aims to verify the role of motivation in an English project, which consists of the participation of students in extra-class activities and in a two-week intensive course that may be taken either in Las Vegas, NE, US or at the school where they already study. All the participants are students of 1st year High School of a private institution situated in Porto Alegre/RS. In this particular study, two aspects were taken into consideration: first to measure if the participation in the trip to Las Vegas influenced the level of motivation of the students for participating of the extra-class activities, and the second aspect was to measure whether or not the participation in the trip to Las Vegas reflected in a better improvement of the students’ skills – in this particular case, Listening, Reading, and Language in Use – compared to the results of the students who did not take part of the trip. The results were compared by the students’ results in two International Placement Tests, one applied in the beginning of the extra-class activities, and the second one, at the end of the classes.