A significant number of people who are enrolled in language learning programs are adults who study English with the purpose of increasing their level of education, and participating in an activity which is fulfilling at a personal level or enables them to work in a specific professional field. This situation leads to the need to provide an academic training in accordance with the social demands of this group. However, this training cannot occur if the students are not motivated, trained and involved to achieve high-performance learning. Given these circumstances, a new concept of the educational process is raised, in which the educator’s role is reconsidered, and the importance of lifelong learning is emphasised (Pino and Rodríguez, 2010).Learning a language involves learning to interact through it, but this communicative situation requires motivation, interest and effort (González-Peiteado and Rodríguez-López, 2014).

On the other hand, until now it has been argued that the plastic reorganisation of brain structures occur mainly during childhood and adolescence, leaving adults with limited means to learn new knowledge and skills. But today it is known that the properties of the human brain structure are dynamic.

Regarding the acquisition of second languages, it has been shown that white matter is progressively reorganised in multiple sites of the brain while adults study a new language (Schlegel, Rudelson and Tse, 2012; Ping, Todd, Bradley, Evan and Kuhl, 2016).

Analysing how students learn is essential to educators in activating the workings of the educational system (González-Peiteado, 2013). In fact, teachers cannot effectively address the task of optimising their performance in the classroom if they do not pay attention to their students’ characteristics. In this sense, motivations, understood as impulses that lead us to action, stimulate us to reach a goal, even if the learning process is complicated. Therefore, if students are not sufficiently motivated, their learning process will be deficient, and may even lead to failure (Pintrich and Schunk, 2006). It is well understood that a motivated student will be able to achieve a satisfactory academic performance, which will require quality professional performance, resulting in the construction of excellence-based knowledge (Saravia and Bernaus, 2008).

The present study considers three general types of motivation, differentiating between intrinsic motivation, which refers to the particular interest in learning a foreign language, extrinsic motivation, related to external sources of motivation, and lack of motivation (Deci and Ryan, 2000).

Intrinsic motivation is oriented towards knowledge, leading to satisfaction due to the achievement of goals and promotion of the professional competence. It focuses on the process rather than the product.

Extrinsic motivation corresponds to behaviours that are performed to obtain a reward or to avoid punishment. Students with this kind of motivation have low autonomy, low self-esteem and insecurity. They basically seek social recognition.

The lack of motivation characterised by the perceived lack of control of the situation, makes them feel that success or failure does not depend on them, thus there is a high probability of abandoning the activity.

The studies carried out in this field coincide in pointing out that intrinsic motivation leads to positive results, whereas extrinsic motivation leads to negative results (Deci and Ryan, 2000). This approach prompts us to consider the existence of a close relationship between motivation, academic performance and persistence in achieving the goal. Consequently, motivation drives people to start learning a foreign language and plays an important role if the learning process becomes difficult.

This study is aimed at understanding, analysing and reflecting on the motivation shown by the course attendees, and which are the variables affecting the type of motivation that they exhibit when learning a second language.

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