Abstract:

Extracurricular activities have long been recognized as an important tool in foreign language teaching. Language acquisition is not only related to teaching language as a means of communication, but even more importantly, emphasizes the importance of knowing other culture, values, ideology, etc. Therefore it becomes vitally important to improve the quality of foreign language teaching. There are well known factors that negatively affect students’ self-esteem and demotivate them learning foreign language, it could be high course requirements, lack of time, low proficiency, personal anxiety, to name a few. Extracullicular activities could help students motivation, increase cultural awareness and expand foreign language skills. Several classifications of ECA were introduced in various theoretical works by Reva 2012, Clegg, Stevenson and Willot, 2009; Fujita, 2006 etc. Extracurricular activities include the study trips, educational walks, community based learning, experiential and work-based learning outside the university, working in a local children’s home, Church activities, drama, faith and cultural activities, sporting activities, debate, hobby clubs, publications etc.

It is important to note that ECA focuses rather on students’s autonomy and independence and being free, they are also available not only for students from a particular group, but to everyone who want to participate. The paper aims at presenting the results of the survey on how extracurricular activities facilitate Lithuanian language teaching and learning process. This thesis discusses the role of extracurricular activities in foreign language learning and presents the opinions of students and language instructors regarding the perceived impact of these activities on students’ language acquisition, cultural acquaintance and language learning motivation. The presentation explores the benefits of these activities and states research questions. First part of the presentation describes the research methodology. Further in the study, the results of data analysis are presented and findings of the results are discussed. The results show significant benefit of the involvement of students in extracurricular work.

Keywords:

Extra curriculum activities.