Why is maintaining motivation of advanced learners important?
Dornyei highlights the importance of maintaining and protecting learners’ motivation, saying it ‘needs to be actively nurtured.’(6) Maintaining advanced learners’ motivation can be difficult at times to the point where at least one activity book has been written specifically for this purpose.(7) Advanced learners, I have noticed, have reached a stage where they are highly efficient in using the language, their learning curve is not as immediately evident as with lower-level learners so they may perceive they are not improving, and some even feel that they have learned enough. These conditions can easily lead to lethargy. In my experience, even having a goal such as passing the CAE does not always maintain their motivation.
