Why and Where Do We Learn a Foreign Language? A Small-scale Investigation of Postgraduate Teacher Students’ Perspectives

When deciding to learn a foreign language (FL), personal factors such as motivation in its various types and the reasons that impel somebody to learn this particular FL are of decisive importance regarding the learning process and its efficacy. The context and the institution in which the FL is taught and learned are also important factors in FL learning. This paper presents the findings of a small-scale investigation of these aspects on postgraduate teacher students of a Greek university. In particular, 34 postgraduate students of the Department of Primary Education of the Democritus University of Thrace were asked to freely produce a small written text on the FLs they have learned, the learning institution and the reasons for learning them. The quantitative content analysis of the produced texts revealed the dominance of English regarding the FLs learned and of private centres of FLs regarding the teaching institutions. Improving their professional prospects and increasing their qualifications were revealed as basic reasons for the students’ learning of a FL.