Some referred to their involvement with the language itself

K: I am in love with English

X: English is a beautiful language either to think or to express the true
feelings of the soul.

According to X, one can realise the nature of language learning when comparing it with
other types of learning:

X: Music implies human development, learning mathematics is mechanical.
Learning a language is more like learning music. By learning a language
I Ieam human values.

S and T did not refer to personal experiences but to the ideal attitude when
learning a language:

S: you need to get involved with the language. If you want to Ieam you need to
have a motif. It is inside oneself. It is something "passionate"

T: to make a habit of learning English, to make it part of your life

Although this view does not contradict what was stated above about the
"difficult" nature of learning a language, it certainly contrasts with the generalisation that
learning has to be compulsory. It seems to me that the participants, once again (see p.
150), are trying to correlate the imposed∕ffee nature of language learning with the
emotional selves. Thus, as it was seen from their comments, some find in it a pleasurable
experience while others relate it with negative emotions.

The emotional side of learning a language seems to be the justification for
avoiding compulsory learning of languages at school. According to most of them, the
"formal-impositive stage of learning English", as S calls it, was a negative experience as
language learners. Even F, a successful and positive learner, talked about his problem at
this stage:

F: I was shocked when I saw the content of my notes from the courses
at the secondary school and realised that they already have taught
me a lot of things, and I didn't remember anything!

And then, F finds a reason for this:

F: The mistake is that they teach English in the same way they
teach Chemistry: using formulae. It doesn’t work because you Ieam the
formula for the exam and then you forget about it.

f) Learning a language and the role of motivation

170

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