Abstract:

Contemporary people increasingly often face the need or necessity for communicating with other people in a non-native language. There are a lot of reasons which stimulate starting to learn a foreign language.

Technological development and the appearance of global language communication as well as international markets all over the world increase the demand for using foreign languages. In Europe emphasis is put on starting to learn a foreign language early. Popularising multilingualism, i.e. the knowledge of a native language, one language of a neighbouring country and a language of international significance, is already discussed in the Treaty on European Union, called the Maastricht Treaty (signed in 1922) and in White Paper on Education and Training (1996). These two documents are in effect in Poland, which joined the European Union on 1 May 2004. With reference to school education, the Polish Ministry of National Education drew up objectives to achieve in primary schools. A key place among them is taken by shaping the ability of using correctly the native language and having communicative knowledge of one foreign language.

Having in mind the above-mentioned objectives as well as the ongoing social and economic changes in the contemporary world, research was conducted in order to diagnose pupils’ interests and their motivation to learn foreign languages already at the stage of early elementary education. The research was conducted in 2018 in 2 selected primary schools in Lublin Province in the borderland between Poland and Belarus, among 102 students. The method of a diagnostic survey and an interview technique were applied in the research.

The author’s own interview questionnaire was used as a research tool. An important assumption of the research was determining the impact of a geographical factor, which is the borderland between Poland and Belarus where the schools participating in the research are located, on pupils’ motivation and interest in learning foreign languages. The research results showed significant differences among pupils, depending on a school they attend. Some of the researched pupils have difficulty learning foreign languages and acquiring language skills.

The most interesting and the pupils’ favourite method of learning turned out to be the Audiolingual Method. The research demonstrated that some methods applied by teachers, e.g. working with the text, are tiresome and not motivating in the opinion of the researched pupils. The compiled results of the study are not only valuable scientifically but also practically, because they are going to be used by the teachers of foreign languages.

Keywords:

Pupils, primary school, popularization of the English language, motivation to learn, education.