This article describes the main methods and factors infl uencing the formation of positive sustainable motivation for educational activities of students. The problem is that children studying from 7th to 9th grade are characterized by a drop in the level of motivation to learn a foreign language at school. There are so-called “risk groups” - children who have an extremely low level of motivation to learn English. The purpose of this study is to examine the level of motivation development of students (optimal, suffi cient or low) in order to improve the learning process and identify effective methods to increase the motivation of students and, consequently, their performance in this subject. A study was conducted among students in grades 7–9 at a gymnasium in the city of Kirov through questionnaires using various methods. As a result of the questionnaires, 15% of students were found to have a low level of learning motivation development, and the types of learning activity organization in which students were more interested and which stimulate them to study English were identifi ed. The most effective types of organizing educational activities were games, group work, project activities and others. Ultimately, based on the analysis of the students’ responses in grades 7, 8 and 9, ways, methods and techniques for working with students included in the “risk group” were developed, and recommendations were given for organizing the educational process of students from 7th to 9th grade.