Lecture-based teaching is still the prevalent form of teaching in almost all secondary schools in Serbia. Although active teaching cannot eliminate all the shortcomings in the teaching of Geography, this particular form gives the best opportunities for understanding individual abilities and preferences of students. The principal aim of the study was to explore which way of teaching (modern-active or traditional-passive) is more beneficial for motivating students' learning and acquiring competencies (knowledge, skills, and abilities) in Geography. Research was conducted to analyse competencies acquired by selected high school students through the application of certain didactic principles in the third grade of Grammar school "Laza Kostić" (Novi Sad, Serbia) with the topic "Hydrography of Serbia". Fieldwork investigation was comprised of conducted survey questionnaire (with pupils evaluating motivation and participation in the process of teaching Geography, as well as activities and learning/acquiring certain geographical content through selected didactic principles, forms, methods, and tools) and the competency test. Descriptive statistics was used for calculating the percentage and average values. The independent t-test was used in order to determine whether there is a statistically significant difference between the experimental and control group regarding the self-evaluation of motivation, participation in teaching, and learning. The difference in terms of acquiring competencies between experimental and control groups was explored by the Chi-square test (χ2). In order to determine whether there is a correlation between self-evaluation in terms of motivation, cooperation, and learning, as well as in the knowledge test between the experimental and control groups, Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) has been calculated. The results indicate that the students have higher level of motivation, and are more interested in learning and acquiring knowledge when the teacher organises the lecture through active learning techniques. The knowledge and skills resulting from these kinds of classes are higher. Also, the results obtained from this type of experimental classes, showed that with an increase of skills and abil-ities, there is no increase in knowledge implying that modern (active) teaching presented better results than the traditional teaching format, but not in all analysed segments.