The study deals with motivational factors for first year upper secondary school students.The purpose of the study is to identify and analyse the learning factors of motivation forgood learning of French. Taking its background from an understanding of the termmotivation and on previous field research, the study uses quantitative and qualitativemethods, and two different questionnaires designed to understand how motivationcontributes to learning French and how teachers can use students’ views about whatpromotes motivation. The study results show that the important motivational factor forstudents is seeing their progress and that teachers apply this by providing feedback aboutstudents’ development. Important also is the support from teachers and having a sense ofcontrol over theirs learning. The study shows that students are motivated by their owninternal motivation. Hence, the most important single motivation factor is to always believein their abilities and in doing their best.