Since Rwanda decided that from 2009 English will be the sole medium of instruction from upper level primary school onwards, motivation for learning English has become an especially important issue. Therefore this study investigated motivation for Rwandan primary and secondary school students to learn English. The study was carried out in Nyagatare and Huye districts in October 2015, with participation by 1,237 school students (314 primary, 475 lower secondary and 448 upper secondary), administered a questionnaire containing 34 items on motivation. Factor analysis identified five types underlying motivation: unwillingness-based, intrinsic, anxiety-based, future-oriented, and praise-oriented. Results show that students in Rwanda overall rely mostly on praiseoriented motivation, followed by intrinsic, future-oriented, anxiety-based, and unwillingness-based motivation. Intrinsic and praise-oriented forms of motivation increase with age, although unwillingness-based and future-oriented forms of motivation, both of which can be labelled as extrinsic motivation, decrease with age. The study indicates that praise is a potential explanatory variable for an increase in intrinsic motivation, whereas a decrease in extrinsic motivation can be attributed to high unwillingness-based motivation of primary school students.