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From https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/rachael-roberts/motivating-your-students-go-beyond-intermediate-plateau

Rachael Roberts writes, "When we first start learning a language we see very quick progress, as we go from barely being able to communicate to being able to function at least adequately in most situations. That’s a huge achievement, and the kind of progress we make after that won’t ever feel quite as exciting.

"And it’s the excitement, or at least stimulation, that got us that far and that we have to try and maintain if we want to get past the intermediate plateau.

"Recent findings in neuroscience tell us that a large part of motivation is tied up with the production of a chemical called dopamine. Some people naturally produce more dopamine than others in the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, and those people are likely to be more hard-working and intrinsically motivated, but we all produce this chemical, which motivates us to act by making us feel good.

"...To get lots of bursts of encouraging dopamine, we need to break down what we are doing into lots of little accomplishments. This is what some online language learning apps are aiming to do. They send you a reminder email to get the dopamine flowing, so you go back to the app. Then as you complete each task you get a little musical ‘Ta-dah!’ that triggers more dopamine.

"Part of the problem with reaching the intermediate plateau is that you realise just how far you still have to go to become truly fluent. Rather than focusing on how big a task lies ahead, encourage your students to make ‘to-do’ lists, to chip away at their goals, and reward themselves for each goal accomplished."

Read the full article at https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/rachael-roberts/motivating-your-students-go-beyond-intermediate-plateau