Students’ Motivation in Choosing to Study Less Commonly Taught Language at a Global University

The article examines the motivational factors that have the greatest and least influence on students’ choice to study less commonly taught language(s) at the University of Washington. In 2023, a five-part online questionnaire was used to collect 88 students’ responses. The main part of the questionnaire consists of 46 motivational factors grouped into five thematic groups: Advertisements of language courses and language learning; prior knowledge of the learning process of the target language; positive previous experience in learning languages and prior knowledge of/about the target language; language speakers, their communities in the US and worldwide; the use of language, its functionality; future perspective. Students were asked to measure the importance of each factor on a five-point scale. In addition, 26 students in the course “Latvian Literary and Cultural History” were surveyed, using open-ended questions to find out their language knowledge, language-learning experience, and beliefs about the value of language knowledge and learning at the university level. The factors rated as extremely important in choosing to study a language were Interest in languages (63% of 88 responses), Traveling, studying, or living in places where the target language is spoken (57%), and Learning about other people and their culture (41%). In turn, the factors least influential in students’ choice to study language(s) were Regular posts about the course / language on social media (51% of respondents), Communication with relatives in their native / heritage language (46%), and Option to choose the number of credits (e.g., 3 or 5) (46%). Such results indicate that students’ intrinsic motivation has higher influence on their choice to study a language.