Motivating Secondary School Students to Learn Languages with Relevant Media — PopuLLar

Figen Yılmaz, Meral Şeker 
(School of Foreign Languages, Cukurova University, Adana, Turkey)

Abstract: Maintaining motivation among students in secondary schools has been one of the biggest challenges. When considering the EU mother-tongue-plus-two-strategy accepted in 2002, the huge need to motivate secondary school students to learn languages becomes even more important. Studies show that motivation to learn depends on the extent to which teachers are able to satisfy students’ needs: to feel in control of their learning (Zimmerman, 1998); to feel they are learning something which is relevant to their lives (Biggs, 1995); to feel connected with others (Deci & Ryan, 1991); and to feel the activities they are doing are interesting and fun (McCombs, 1994). The EU funded PopuLLar Project, described in this paper, has opted for songs, videos and interactive activities in order to meet these students’ needs for motivation. Through this project the students will be able to combine their love of music, with creativity, literacy, digital competencies, and group collaboration and, most importantly, use LWULT languages.

Key words: foreign language learning, music in language teaching, learner autonomy