Now you might have gathered from my previous post that I study Modern Languages at university - four of them, in fact, which has caused such disbelief and controversy that I was actually an answer to a pub quiz question at Tuesday's Oktoberfest social (but I'm not alone in this, as our German Soc secretary Rachel is also mad enough to be studying the same number!).
Once you start to learn languages, I don't think that it's unusual to want to collect them. I started learning German when I was 11 and when the opportunity arose to start another language, it seemed silly to turn it down. I have to say that I would have liked to pick up French at that point, but unfortunately it wasn't possible and so I began ab initio Spanish at GCSE level.
At some point after that, I set about taking A levels in both languages. I would be telling big fat fibs if I said that any of that was particularly easy - aside from any linguistic preoccupations, I was having some serious wobbles about going away to university, so it was after lots of support from the wonderful Sixth Form team at Hele's (and still with some trepidation) that I began my studies at Exeter.
Via www.exeter.ac.uk
Now that I'm in my second year, I feel so much more settled. If you read my Sorting out Stammtisch post, you'll know that I've taken on a lot more responsibility this year, particularly with German Soc (in the picture below, we're at John Gandy's for the Joint Languages White T-Shirt social).
After starting French lessons in January and doing well in my end-of-year German and Spanish exams, I decided that second year would be the perfect time (if there is such a thing) to pick up a fourth language. In my case, this was going to be Russian.
To give you some idea of what it's like to study four languages, here are a few questions that I'm often asked about my course and studies...
The Joint Languages White T-Shirt social, 2013
Why are you studying languages?
Unfortunately, this question has a bit of a boring answer: because I enjoy it. I don't think that anybody knows what they want to study at university when they're in Year 7 - I think that I probably wanted to do History - so I wasn't motivated by that when I started learning languages.
I think that it's easier to say why I'm studying French and Russian, though. Both languages are famous for their literature; both have had a tumultuous and fascinating history. And of course, the French are renowned for their pâtisserie, so if I didn't learn their language, I might miss out on an chance to eat cake!
I'm also one of the only students in the MFL department who doesn't speak French, which has spurred me on somewhat, and most language teachers are required to know French in some capacity, so job prospects have to come into my decisions now too. I am nearly 20 after all...
Via www.exeter.ac.uk
Don't you get confused between all the different languages?
Not as much as you might expect - at least, not yet! I don't get mixed up in the sense that I use German words in the middle of Spanish sentences and things like that, because thankfully, each of the four languages that I study is completely different to the others. The only exception is French, which might one day become a little bit muddled with Spanish as I learn more of it.
Sometimes, though, I do get a case of what I call 'German-brain' or 'Spanish-brain' etc. For me, it means that, although I'm not actually muddling the languages together, the German part of my brain might not want to work when I need to be doing German, for example; for reasons known only to itself, it might only want to do Spanish.
What's the point in studying foreign languages? Everyone speaks English anyway.
Uh oh, this sounds familiar! This is probably one of the most common comments that I get when people find out that I'm studying languages - particularly from friends at home who are much more science-orientated.
For starters, it's quite rude; nobody wants to hear that the subject they're going to study at university for four looong years is pointless. But on top of that, it isn't even true! It is a dangerous but sadly common misconception that everybody speaks English. If they did, what would we study? After one-and-a-bit years here at Exeter, I'm pretty certain that there is an awful lot of literature, cinema, history, political science and philosophy in every language the uni offers. Therefore, you'd be doing yourself a massive favour if you had a go at learning a foreign language so that you can experience some of these things.
For me, the point in studying languages is to be able to access that enormous wealth of culture that would otherwise be closed off. To give you an example, I'm learning Russian so that one day I might be able to read Tolstoy in his native language. I know that that sounds highly unrealistic (and believe me, it feels it when you're only two weeks into learning the Cyrillic alphabet), but that's what encouraged me to pick up that particular language.
Via www.wikipedia.org
Would you change anything about the way you were taught languages?
Ooh, controversial! I really enjoyed my language lessons at secondary school; the teachers in the MFL department at Hele's are fantastic, so if you're reading this and you're a pupil there, you should know that you're very lucky!
But the thing that I would love to improve about teaching foreign languages is the flexibility of the syllabus (so it is absolutely not the fault of the teachers, because they're outstanding). Languages shouldn't be confined to one classroom, because they're not really a subject - you know, people in Germany use German in the classroom and everywhere else - so I think that MFL should be extended across the curriculum to allow for active learning. I think it was in Year 9 that we had a chemistry lesson delivered in German, which was fantastic because we'd never heard it spoken outside the MFL department before.
In my view, this 'being active' is really important; I bet you never thought you'd hear me say that, did you? But if you take a look at something like the Take 10 programme, you'll see many examples of active language learning and how much more effective it is than the current system of learning lists of vocab off by heart.
So the change I would make would be to rescue students and teachers from the 'memory test' system that seems to be taking over language teaching and try to create a more invigorating, challenging, but ultimately more effective method of learning languages.
Via www.ucl.ac.uk
Well done if you got through all of that! I apologise for having a couple of picture-lite posts, but I should be back to my old snap-happy ways soon enough. Having just started back at uni, I really wanted to write about my degree programme and why I find it so interesting, because I think that poor old foreign languages are often misunderstood and dismissed.
Hopefully that is all about to change.
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