If someone told me that it would take between three to ten years to acquire the language skills that I needed to study at a post-secondary level, would I be up for the challenge or decide that it was just too difficult? Research in the area of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) indicates that it can take this long (Collier, 1987, Hakuta, Butler, and Witt, 2000). So when I noticed that many of my international students appeared to be struggling academically and disengaging in my language and communications course, I felt that I needed to find a new strategy or approach very quickly.
I started off with a simple Google search: student + language learning + motivation. Little did I know that what I would eventually discover would significantly change my approach as a language teacher, and also affect my own learning.