Have you ever wondered why your students want to learn English? Or what motivates them to pay for online tutoring? By interviewing dozens of students, we’ve found that they generally have the following four sources of motivation.

1. “Online Tutoring is Fun!”

Some of our students simply enjoy meeting new people from around the world while learning English. It’s a win-win. “Online English conversation is my hobby!” exclaimed one student (🇯🇵). 

A high school student (🇹🇼) said, “My tutors give me a lot of advice about life, and it makes me happy to know that there's both a language and a life lesson waiting for me when I get home.”

Our students also cite diversity as one of the reasons they choose our service instead of other options. 

• As one student (🇰🇷) put it, “When you go abroad, you need to be able to communicate with people from all different backgrounds, accents, and lifestyles.” So the more nationalities, the better. 
• One student (🇯🇵) even took lessons specifically with Indian tutors on our platform before attending a conference in India. 

Further, students love cultural exchange. Many brought up interesting conversations they had with tutors about local traditions, holidays, and food. As one student (🇹🇼) exclaimed, “Can you believe that in Europe, they eat bread three meals a day?”

Students also like exchanging opinions with tutors from around the world. As one (🇯🇵) reflected, “It’s great to be able to hear opinions on Trump or problems in Syria from teachers from so many different cultural backgrounds and values.”

So this might not be the reason they take our lessons, but it’s definitely the main one why they stick around.

Now onto more serious motivations!

2. “I need to learn English.”

Some of our students learn English, because they need it to pursue opportunities in higher education. 

One student shared (🇹🇼), “I took classes to prepare for TOEFL, but since there were so many students in the class, I was never able to speak up. So I knew I needed some sort of tutoring to actually improve my speaking.” 

Some need English to advance their careers. Knowing English can enable students to work at global companies and staying up-to-date on developments in your field is definitely easier with knowledge of the international language..

For example, many students in science and engineering need English to attend international conferences or read English reports and research.

Finally, a handful of our students are English teachers and what they want is to learn it better so they can teach it better!

3. “I want to learn English.”

Some students simply want to improve their English for their personal interests. For example, a student (🇯🇵) told us that his dream was to understand American TV shows without subtitles! 

In general, however, most students want to improve their ability to communicate with foreigners. One student (🇯🇵) said, “I went to Hawaii for a marathon and could only say ‘thank you’ to the people who gave me water and lots of other things. I wanted to say so much more!” 

Another student (🇯🇵) said that thanks to our tutors, he can now go to a local bar and connect to foreigners there. Yet another (🇯🇵) said that learning with us helped her better connect with foreign friends she made online.

Many students also mentioned not wanting to feel left out, whether that was in meetings with clients or at lunch with colleagues. 

One student (🇯🇵) said, “Our company provided interpreters, so I could communicate through them during meetings, but I at least want to understand what’s going on.” 

Another student (🇯🇵) admitted that she felt ashamed at not being able to understand her coworkers’ jokes.

4. “I would feel guilty if I didn’t learn English.”

Some students learn English, because they feel they should learn English. In many countries, learning English is like getting exercise. There’s no need to explain why you do either of those activities; they’re just “good for you.”

For example, many students mentioned being ashamed at not being able to provide adequate responses to foreign tourists who asked them for directions. 

Unlike some countries, where people dislike tourists for not speaking the local language, in the East Asian countries many of our students call home, people don’t expect foreigners to know their mother tongue and feel bad for not knowing the international language.

Fluency in English is even considered cool and prestigious. One observer commented that in Japan, English is a “vaguely longed-after consumer good…. The Japanese own all sorts of consumer goods, but few of them have acquired English competence... so such competence has rarity value.” 

👋 That’s it for now!

Hope you enjoyed learning about our students and why they learn English! Have yours said anything about their motivations for learning English? If not, now may be the time to ask. Happy tutoring!