Motivation in Adult Students of Italian as a Foreign Language: a Research Based in Prague and Two Teaching Proposals

Abstract

This paper deals with the large field of motivation in language teaching and learning, but, in particular, with motivation in adult learners who chose to study Italian as a foreign language. With the use of an online questionnaire shared with 60 adult students of Italian in the Czech Republic, participants were asked to express their opinions on different language teaching aspects. Discovering what factors trigger motivation in adult learners before, during, and after the real contact with the language course was the objective of this research. This paper also includes two learning units that have been tested in class and were found to be particularly motivating for the adult students involved in the research.