Reading books is crucial in language acquisition, be it in our mother tongue or one of the many foreign languages we encounter in everyday life. The development of technology provides easier and greater access to many materials that an individual can use to help him or her learn and improve languages, but we note that reading is not among the most popular activities for most primary and secondary school learners. We are aware that there is no school (or education) without reading even though there is not much reading of a large amount of literature in mother tongue or in a foreign language happening during the lessons due to time constraints and the curriculum. Reading literature in a foreign language is an activity that students perform in their free time, which is not a problem for those students who enjoy it. The problem arises with students who dislike reading; therefore, it is the teachers' responsibility to motivate their students accordingly. One of the possibilities for additional reading of literature in a foreign language is English reading competitions which take place every school year. We are familiar with two reading competitions in Slovene primary schools, namely EPI Reading Badge and Bookworms. Both competitions are voluntary; learners choose to participate because of their own joy and interest or because of various external factors present in their lives. Based on the prepared questionnaire in the empirical part of the thesis, we learn that interest in reading competition participation decreases with the transition to a higher grade and that both internal and external motivational factors contribute to the application.
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