In past weeks we have heard from two of the inaugural Lidl prize winners for German, Anna and Cecilia. Today we hear from a third winner. Rachel studies German and History at Merton College. Here she tells us what it’s like to study German at Oxford and how the linguistic and literary sides of the degree intertwine...
A common misconception about studying languages both at school and
university is that its sole function is to learn the language in
question. Although this may be the case at GCSE, A level students will
soon discover that culture, identity, politics and history come hand in
hand with any linguistic studies. These themes become far more prominent
at degree level, and I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that
languages at university is an incredibly exciting and varied area which
encapsulates all humanities subjects.
Although the importance of multilingualism in business and diplomacy is often (and rightly) emphasised in the promotion of language learning, studying German at Oxford has so far taught me that a language degree offers even more than these highly employable skills. As a joint schools student studying History alongside German I have always seen the main focus of my degree as culture; the combination of linguistic and historical awareness is what gives us the greatest understanding of societal and national identities. Oxford’s emphasis on literature as a way of accessing foreign culture is incredibly powerful, as it not only explores the use and intricacies of the language, but also addresses the country’s history and art. This became particularly evident to me during our term of studying German poetry, which explores history and philosophy through methods whose effects would be completely lost in translation. The depth of literary study at Oxford can be daunting given the limited experience A level offers in this area, but the support given through lectures and tutorials means that even the most impenetrable novels can be discussed and appreciated as gateways to foreign language and culture.
The most important thing my first year has taught me is
that languages at Oxford does not demand heavy pre-reading and prior
knowledge; I had only read two German books before and had never even
considered being able to read any pre-twentieth century literature!
Understanding of the language and methods comes with time, but is made
easier by enthusiasm and an open mind to the history and ideas which it
is trying to share.
We have an unusual post on this week’s Adventures on the Bookshelf, but one very much in keeping with the blog’s name as today’s post touches on both adventure and bookshelves! Last week, Frank Egerton gave us a brilliant introduction to the Modern Languages Library at Oxford, the Taylor Institution. Now, continuing the theme of libraries, we are pleased to feature an imaginary interview with Sir Thomas Bodley, founder of Oxford’s Bodleian Library. This interview comes once again courtesy of Frank, who has imagined Sir Thomas’s responses to some probing questions about his life and his library. The interview has been published in English on the blog Clio – la muse de l’histoire, and Francophiles among you will be pleased to hear that it is also available in a French translation on the blog Le mot juste enanglais. Many thanks to Jonathan Goldberg for inviting us to reblog this fascinating creative insight into the library at the heart of Oxford.
The Bodleian Library
“There are few greater temptations on earth than to stay permanently at Oxford in meditation, and to read all the books in the Bodleian.” — Hilaire Belloc
The Bodleian Library (“Bodley” or “the Bod”) is the main research library of the University of Oxford and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It is second in size in the United Kingdom only to the British Library. It serves principally as a reference library. Formally established in 1602, it bears the name of Sir Thomas Bodley, a fellow of Merton College, one of the 38 colleges making up the University. In 2000, a number of libraries within the University of Oxford were brought together for administrative purposes under the aegis of what was initially known as Oxford University Library Services (OULS), and since 2010 as the Bodleian Libraries, of which the Bodleian Library is the largest component. Over its various sites the Bod keeps 12 million printed books and allows access to more than 80,000 electronic journal titles. It also keeps ancient documents, manuscripts, papyrus, cards and sketches. Much of the library’s archives were digitized and put online for public access in 2015.
The Interview…
Frank: Don’t ask me how this works but it does. Hello, Sir Thomas.
Sir Thomas: Hello, Frank. It is an honour to meet you.
Frank: The honour’s all mine Sir Thomas. So, for the benefit of our audience, it’s with great pleasure that I’m here to interview Sir Thomas Bodley, after whom the world-famous Bodleian Library was named. Sir Thomas personally paid for and masterminded the library’s refurbishment, the original building having been abandoned and its book collection destroyed during the English Reformation. An outstanding achievement, Sir Thomas, for which the world will always be grateful.
Sir Thomas: It’s kind of you to say so.
Frank: I should mention that earlier I took Sir Thomas on a tour of the library as it is now. First impressions, Sir Thomas?
Sir Thomas: Still recognisable – and I’m always pleased to see the extension at the western end. That happened after my death. It balances the building and provides lots of additional space. I’m intrigued by the glowing glass windows that readers look into on the desks. I’d like to find out more about those and these ebooks you mentioned. No swords, of course.
Frank: No, I think they were banned quite some time ago. No coffee in this part of the building either. And definitely no smoking anywhere. But perhaps—
Sir Thomas: I like to keep abreast of new things. I may not have caught up with ebooks but coffee – well that only came in fifty years after my time. And smoking – I remember Sir Walter [Raleigh] persuading Her Royal Highness [Elizabeth I] to try some. Clouds of smoke and everyone coughing. I think she saw the funny side in the end.
Queen Elizabeth I, Unknown continental artist, oil on panel, circa 1575. National Portrait Gallery.
Frank: Now, Sir Thomas, as you know, we’re particularly interested in languages and European culture here – as well as books and libraries —
Sir Thomas: All interconnected.
Frank: Quite! Your experience of Europe came at an early age, Sir Thomas, didn’t it?
Sir Thomas: Yes. I was born on 2nd March 1545 and my first journey to Europe was undertaken in 1555. Dad was a merchant in Exeter who had strong Protestant faith and who’d helped pay for the suppression of a Catholic rebellion in the west country. When Queen Mary [Tudor] came to the throne, our family fled, initially to Frankfurt and from thence to Geneva, where Dad set up a printing business – that must have had some influence on my love of the printed word! Europe seemed then to be the heart of Protestantism – at least where we were. We were with John Knox in Frankfurt and at Geneva I studied Divinity at the feet of Calvin himself – a tireless worker and an inspiration to us all. I also studied Hebrew and Greek. And of course, we were surrounded by people speaking different languages. After Mary died we returned but by then my west country childhood was but a distant memory.
Frank: What memories of Europe you must have had, though.
Sir Thomas: True, but there was something frustrating about being so close to European culture and yet cut off from it by the discipline of the school room. I vowed to go back.
Frank: But first to Oxford, the city that became synonymous with the name of Sir Thomas Bodley.
Sir Thomas: No sooner did we return than I was an undergraduate at Magdalen College. Back on English soil in September 1559 and a matriculated student before the year was out. My studies at the Geneva Academy stood me in good stead. I did well and in 1564 I became a fellow of Merton College. I was its first lecturer in Greek a year later. For a time I thought my career would begin and end in Oxford. But, there’s this restlessness in me – perhaps it was being uprooted at a tender age then glimpsing how huge the world is. Questing, questing – I always wanted more. I tried many different things. Languages were at the heart of things – don’t get me wrong – Greek and in particular Hebrew, the study of which I and another fellow promoted energetically, opening up the knowledge contained in texts written in that language. But then there was a string of other posts alongside my academic life – college bursar, garden master, deputy public orator. What opportunities there were!
Frank: And friendships,
Sir Thomas: Certainly – one especially. At Oxford I got to know Sir Henry Savile – a cultured and steadfast man who would teach me so much when I started the library project at the end of the century.
Frank: But before that, travel and diplomacy.
Sir Thomas: Travel, yes. I’d never forgotten the vow I made when I returned in 1559. Here’s what I wrote in my autobiography: “I waxed desirous to travel beyond the seas, for attaining to the knowledge of some special modern tongues, and for the increase of my experience in the managing of affairs…” I journeyed to France then to Germany and Italy, learning French, Italian and Spanish. I spent over four years in those countries. The languages fascinated me but so too did new skills I could use in the service of our nation. Under the patronage of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and Sir Francis Walsingham, I became a gentleman usher to the Queen and a member of parliament – though the latter was, sad to say, the least well executed of my duties. From 1585 until 1598, when I threw in the towel, my life was devoted to diplomacy and discrete negotiation—
Frank: Spying?
Sir Thomas: We never thought of it in those terms. Not like your James Bond—
Frank: James Bond?
Sir Thomas: I told you I like to keep up with things – though there are so many..
Frank: So not quite James Bond.
Sir Thomas: Though I did have an impact on world events, I like to think, at least to begin with. When I was sent, alone, with letters from the Queen to Henry III of France after he had been forced to flee Paris, I was charged with “extraordinary secrecy”. Though I say it myself – and I did say it in my autobiography – the outcome benefitted not only Henry but “all the Protestants in France”. If only things had continued that way. There was meeting Ann, of course, and getting married, which were the greatest events of that period but then for nine years I lived in the Hague, not always with Ann beside me, endlessly trying to persuade the United Provinces first to support the Queen’s war with Spain and secondly to pay her vast sums of money for the privilege. Neither side would give way. I was caught between a rock and a hard place. Talk about the woes of being a middle manager!
Frank: I know just what you mean!
Sir Thomas: Listen to this – one of the Queen’s secretaries writing in 1594: “…her majesty hath had just cause these many years to have expected a grateful offer from the States of some yearly portion of the great sums by her majesty expended…” She wanted a return on her investment, and they claimed they thought she’d simply been doing them a good turn. It was impossible. And then there was the intrigue at court. I couldn’t abide it any longer.
Frank: In your own words, “I concluded…to set up my staff at the Library door in Oxford; being thoroughly persuaded that…I could not busy myself to better purpose than by reducing that place (which then in every part lay ruined and waste) to the public use of students.”
King Edward VI, after Hans Holbein the Younger, oil on panel, c. 1542 , National Portrait Gallery
Sir Thomas: I’d been lucky to escape with my head! And so I turned to a project that I’d had in mind for some years. When I was at Oxford as a student and young academic, there was no university library – the manuscripts that Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, had donated had all been snatched under a law passed byKing Edward VI and scattered to the four winds. Imagine that. Many were said to have been reused by bookbinders to cover less “superstitious” publications. They were priceless classical texts. Because I’d been most fortunate in my marriage – Ann was a widow, whose first husband made millions at today’s prices out of buying and selling pilchards—
Frank: Pilchards?
Sir Thomas: Like sardines, only tastier. We didn’t have children, so it seemed only right that the money should be used for the good of future generations of students. With invaluable advice from Sir Henry, I arranged for the old building to be refurbished and persuaded my acquaintances to donate books and bought others through booksellers who travelled to Paris and Frankfurt – and even to Italy – to find them. As Sir Francis Bacon said of the library, it was an “Ark to save learning from deluge”. We collected European texts mainly but also books in Arabic and Persian – one two in Chinese, though no one could read them then.
Frank: People considered Chinese books to be curiosities, didn’t they, and of no real value?
Sir Thomas: I didn’t – someone had taken all that trouble to write those characters, and someone else had paid them to do so. Who could know what wisdom the books contained? But I did know that one day a scholar would come to Oxford who would unlock their secrets. Soon we had scholars visiting from beyond our shores – twenty-two in the first two years. In 1610 I made an agreement with the Stationers Company, whereby they would give the library a free copy of every book they registered.
Frank: Which is still in place today – though many of the copies are now given as ebooks.
Sir Thomas: Ebooks again! Well, like every library, we were soon running out of space, so I had to pay for an extension. A proud moment in the library was when King James visited – I’d been knighted for my services the year before. But towards the end of the project and before the next, much bigger extension could be built, I knew that my time was near and I passed over on 29th January 1613. And here I am.
Frank: And here you are indeed. And very much still here in Oxford is your library for which the whole world thanks you. Sir Thomas Bodley – library legend!
Sir Thomas: Thank you for inviting me! It’s been a pleasure. Now, when we get to the green room you must tell me about these ebooks…
Author Bio: Francis (Frank) Egerton is an author and a librarian and manager for the Bodleian libraries (Oxford). He also teaches and tutors on a number of University of Oxford creative writing programmes. He has a BA (Hons) Oxon and MA Oxon (English Literature and Language). His original qualification was as an Associate of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, but he abandoned his job as a land agent to read English at Oxford. He reviewed fiction and non-fiction for newspapers including The Times and the Financial Times from 1995–2008. His first novel, The Lock, was published in paperback in 2003 and his second, Invisible, in 2010. The ebook version of The Lock reached the finals of the Independent eBook Awards in Santa Barbara in 2002. In The Times [of London] review of Invisible, Kate Saunders commented on “the author’s lively wit and acute understanding of the emotional landscape.”
Today’s post was written by Frank Egerton, who is a writer and the Operations Manager of the Reader Services Team at the Taylor Institution Library. The Taylor Institution (affectionately known as ‘The Taylorian’ by our students and staff) is the University’s centre for the study of Modern European languages and literatures, other than English. As well as its West and East European collections, the library houses collections for Linguistics, Film Studies, and Women’s Studies. Here, Frank tells us more about this incredible resource.
I started work at the Taylor Institution Library on 5th January 2009. As I approach the building ten years later and look up at its classical columns, its statuary and its almost unimaginably massive windows, I continue to think (how could I not?), How lucky I am to work here.
Yet I’m also aware that all that architecture might seem unreal – think Downton Abbey or National Trust – and at worst, forbidding.
It is my job and that of my Reader Services team to make the experience of the building and its amazing collections welcoming, friendly and fulfilling.
More on the present later, but first, history.
It’s a common misconception that the Taylor Institution is part of the Ashmolean Museum. Well it is, on the outside, but inside, the library is totally separate. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the University had two bequests, one for an art gallery, the other for a centre dedicated to the study of modern European languages. The solution was to run an architectural competition for the best design of a single building that accommodated both spaces. This was won by CR Cockerell and his building was completed in 1844.
The Taylor Institution Library
The money for the institution and its library had come from another architect, Sir Robert Taylor, who had travelled in Europe and who had amassed a magnificent collection of architectural books written in Italian, French and English, which the library now holds.
Not that getting the money was easy. Taylor died in 1788, having stipulated that the University would only receive his bequest if his son, resplendently named Michael Angelo Taylor, died without a male heir. While this did eventually happen, Michael Angelo also tried to overturn his father’s will – despite being one of the richest men in London.
That the money came to the University and the Taylor Institution was built has benefitted generations of scholars for over 170 years.
In the 1930s an extension – which is now our Teaching Collection – was built in the Art Deco style. It was formally opened by the Prince of Wales – who went on to become King Edward VIII, before abdicating. You can see photographs of the future king and all the senior academics of the day outside our lecture hall.
The original collection of books was partly created by donations, just as the original Bodleian Library had been at the end of the sixteenth century. Last year I was thrilled to come across a book that my great-great-great grandfather had given in 1849.
Since then, our collections have grown enormously – in fact, they have outgrown our building! In total, we have some 750,000 items (books, journals, a rapidly growing collection of DVDs, and… a lock of Goethe’s hair). But only half of these are kept in the building. The rest being at the Bodleian’s Book Storage Facility, some 40 miles from Oxford. (The Taylorian is one of the Bodleian Libraries.) Nevertheless, these books aren’t mothballed but can be ordered using the University’s online catalogue, SOLO (feel free to explore it). If the order is placed before 10.30 am on a weekday, it will arrive at around 2 pm that afternoon and most of our offsite books can be borrowed just as if they had been collected from our bookshelves.
Our bookshelves… As you can imagine, there are quite a lot of those. Sometimes I look along just a bay of them and I am overwhelmed by how many books there are. All that knowledge, all those ideas, all those opportunities for learning… In stacks and rooms reached by stairs that remind you of the library in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose…
Which is where the librarians come in. The Subject and Reader Services teams work together to make sense of the collections for our readers and to help them find what they need for their studies or research. The Taylor has a deserved reputation for the friendliness of its staff, their knowledge and their willingness to go the extra mile. One of the most important messages we aim to get across at inductions is that library staff are always there to help.
The Library in the Modern Languages Faculty, Oxford
Our subject librarians also curate and expand our outstanding collections, buying new books, of course, but also ebooks and ejournals, and electronic resources. Not to mention putting together exhibitions of works from our special collections, arranging talks and teaching courses on how to access information and digital scholarship.
I’ve mentioned that you can get an impression of the richness of our collections by browsing the University library catalogue, SOLO, but for a deeper understanding of what they contain you can check out our website and, above all, the tremendous online guides that our subject consultants have created for their particular language. Here you will find not just information about what is available in Oxford but open (freely available) resources and websites.
Yet for all the convenience of the digital age, the Taylor Institution Library remains the human heart of Modern Languages research, teaching and learning. It contains quiet spaces, lecture rooms, a common room and corridors which are alive with discussion. Its staff are there to welcome, to help and to unlock the possibilities of its world-class collections.
Further info
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For regular updates follow us on Twitter (@TAYOxford).
If there are any teachers reading the blog, you may also be interested in our ‘Sir Robert Taylor Society Conference’ – an annual conference for MFL teachers held each September in Oxford, and named after the founder of the library. More information is available here.
One of the joint degrees we offer at Oxford is in European and Middle Eastern Languages (EMEL). Unlike most of our students, who take their year abroad in the third year of their course, EMEL students go abroad in the second year (the same is true of those studying Russian from scratch). In today’s post Sarah, who studies Spanish and Arabic, tells us about the Arabic part of her year abroad in Jordan.
Only a few months ago, my friends and I went out for our very last meal together in Jordan. We had been there for around nine months, give or take a few weeks, and I think we were all genuinely upset and a little bit tearful to be leaving. It was sad to go, but it also felt a bit strange, given how much time we had spent there, and the many wonderful experiences we had had together in that beautiful country.
Our year in Jordan began in early September, when the weather was still warm and our Arabic still a little bit flimsy. We still spoke to the taxi drivers in formal, fuṣḥā Arabic, the kind of Arabic you hear in news broadcasts and official speeches, but not in the street. But as the heat ebbed away, and the weather turned so cold we started wearing blankets and coats even indoors, we learnt more dialect – both in classes, and through going out in Amman, Jordan’s capital.
At the suggestion of our teachers, we tried mansaf, Jordan’s national lamb and yoghurt dish, at traditional restaurants. We often ate baklava, and the cheesy dessert kanafeh, as a treat on Thursdays (the last day of the working week in Jordan, as it begins again on Sunday). We visited the towering malls of al-Abdali, haggled in the downtown markets and souqs of Wasit al-Balad, felt sophisticated eating cake in classy Jabal al-Weibdeh.
We travelled further afield, to the cities of Irbid and Madaba, to the Red Sea city of Aqaba, to the Roman ruins of Jerash, and of course to Petra and the Wadi Rum. Some of us had the opportunity to visit other parts of the region, and saw the wonders of Lebanon, Egypt and Oman. We met so many kind people, of whom perhaps the kindest were our teachers. They were so generous and shared so much of their lives and culture with us, and we are so grateful. We had so much fun.
I think we also grew more confident, as we were forced to leave the bubble of Oxford. We were living in a different country, with a different culture and a different language that we were trying our best to learn, and it could get hard at times. We had to rely more on each other, and I was so fortunate to share a flat for almost a year with three amazing women, each unique, but all so intelligent and kind. Being abroad built stronger friendships between us. There were ups and downs, highs and lows, but I think we could all enjoy the year so much because we had each other. Soppy, I know, but true.
It was for all those reasons that we felt so sad to leave at the very beginning of June. I was, and continue to be, so grateful for the opportunity we had to live in Jordan for nine months. It is why I am so jealous of the students going abroad this year. I wish you all luck; a little part of me wishes, too, that I was going with you.
A few weeks ago we published a blog post written by one of the winners of the Lidl prizes for German, Cecilia. Today’s post was written by another winner: Anna won the Lidl prize for the best performance in the examination after the first year of all students studying German from scratch. Here she tells us what it’s like to study German as a beginners’ language at Oxford, and how she sued her prize money to further her study of German.
By the end of year 12 I knew that I wanted to study French at university, but felt an additional beginners’ language would be quite exciting and a bit of a change from what I was used to. I considered Russian or Italian for a while but ultimately settled on German; it seemed to complement French well while still being a new challenge (the Cyrillic alphabet seemed just a little too scary) and I liked the idea of the complicated yet logical grammar system.
My first year studying German has been such a great experience; I arrived knowing only a few basic words and now feel I have a very strong foundation in German grammar to take into my second year. The course is fast-paced yet comprehensive, with a lot of contact hours and long (but manageable) lists of vocabulary to learn, but it was all absolutely worth it; it’s amazing to see how far I’ve come in a relatively short space of time. Additionally, the teaching style at Oxford means that you spend a lot of time with your coursemates, which is especially true for beginners’ German (and indeed any other beginners’ language); there were seven of us on the course and we would see each other for class every day, so we all ended up really close which was a lovely support system during exams or if we had a particularly difficult translation task.
I came to Oxford from a very average state school; the feeling of ‘impostor syndrome’ was very real before I arrived and I was worried I’d be miles behind everyone else. However, I’ve really enjoyed being pushed academically and crucially have never felt that my educational background has hindered me in any way. Winning the Lidl prize for best performance in beginners’ German was quite a surprise but I’m so grateful for it and overall feel that I’ve done myself proud.
The prize money has helped to fund my summer travels – I went to Heidelberg for two weeks with one of my classmates to do a language course. It was really beneficial to have a familiar face in class and someone at the same level to speak German with; we even went out for cocktails one night and didn’t speak a word of English! There were also plenty of opportunities to practise our German with others – we met lots of fellow students from all over the world, and Germans are generally quite accepting of learners and let you muddle through (and then correct your mistakes, which is a bit embarrassing but very helpful).
I couldn’t recommend studying German at university more to anyone who enjoys modern languages, whether it’s following an A-Level qualification or starting from scratch. For those considering the latter, don’t be put off by the daunting prospect of reaching A-Level standard within a year – it’s definitely achievable and more rewarding than you could ever imagine.
Two weeks ago, we posted some snapshots of career destinations from alumni who have studied Russian. From journalism to business, from marketing to translating, it’s fascinating to see where our graduates end up. This week, we’ve included a few more snapshots to give you an insight into the vast range of career options open to linguists. These were originally published on the Creative Multilingualism blog.
“I became a journalist when I left Oxford – and intended to go back to Moscow to become a reporter. However, I ended up in New York instead and took a different path, which led to a career as an author. I have now written 8 books and am about to embark on a 9th. I was awarded an honorary D.Sc. last summer, which is perhaps unusual for an arts graduate and a Russianist. I have done a huge amount of work in making science accessible and entertaining to primary school children, hence the award.”
“After graduation I spent 3 and a half years in Moscow. I worked for a French sports retail company called Decathlon. I spent that time speaking virtually no English. It meant that I am now very fluent in both French and Russian (plus I know how to say every type of sports equipment under the sun in both languages). After Decathlon, I decided that I wanted to pursue a more academic career (law) and I went to work for an English law firm in Moscow as a paralegal for the remainder of my time in Russia. I came back to the UK, did my law qualification and, before starting work in London, I decided I wanted one last adventure. I went to China for a year and taught myself Mandarin. I’ve been working in London since 2011 in an international law firm and have also spent spells working in China. I specialise in EU and competition law.”
“I joined a classical music publisher on leaving Oxford, at first as an intern and then as a permanent member of staff. I have also worked in the Publications team at the National Portrait Gallery.”
“I produce TV commercials.”
“I have been working as an editor for an educational publishing company since graduating from Oxford. Presently, my husband and I are setting up a beer brewery.”
“I went back to Moscow after graduating and tried out various jobs such as English teaching, working as trilingual PA in a Russian bank, a journalist, translator, copy-editor; then I worked for 3 years at an artist management company in London (working with many Russian artists), then for a year at a marketing company with a Russian client base. I’m now back at university doing an M.Sc. in Speech and Language therapy (which involves linguistics and phonetics).”
“I completed a Master’s in Russian and East European Studies at Harvard. I’m now a corporate lawyer by day (and most of the night) where I work heavily with Russian and Eastern European clients (I have used Russian, Czech, Slovak and Ukrainian – picked up at Harvard – at work). For the remainder of the night I am a struggling writer (on things Russian).”
“I continued my study of languages, first Arabic at the School of Oriental and African Studies as part of a Master’s, for which my major was Law in the Middle East and North Africa, then Chinese at BPP University as part of a Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) and Legal Practice Course (LPC), all funded by the law firm I work for in London as a trainee solicitor. I’m also a freelance producer of short films, comedy and theatre.”
The Oxford German Olympiad 2020 launched on 26 September 2019, the European Day of Languages! The topic is NATUR UND TECHNIK (Nature and Technology). There are tasks for learners of German in Year 5 to Year 13, tasks for group entries, and even some tasks for complete beginners. The deadline for entries is noon on Friday 13 March 2020. You can find the full competition and submission guidelines here. Read on to see an outline of this year’s tasks…
Years 5 and 6 (age 9-11):
Design a robot and label its parts, and write what it can do.
Draw a picture of your home city, town or village from a Vogelperspektive – bird’s eye view. Label the things the bird is most interested in.
You’re going to set up a community on Mars – draw your spaceship and the fifteen most important things to take, and label them.
Years 7 to 9 (age 11-14):
Create a poster explaining Klimawandel.
Find out about Ötzi, the Tyrolean Iceman. What technical invention would he choose to take back to his community if he could time-travel? Draw Ötzi with a speech bubble explaining his choice, and illustrate and describe the invention.
Create a blogpost on a topic of your choice, with 3-5 photos taken by yourself, for a German-language online conservation magazine.
Years 10 and 11 (age 14-16):
“Ein Tag ohne Technik” – Write a story or create a video or website on this theme.
Paint or draw a landscape in the style of Caspar David Friedrich and write about the work of art that inspired it.
“Machen wir unsere Erde unbewohnbar?” Write a dialogue between two people who disagree about the answer.
Years 12 and 13 (age 16-18):
“Klimawandel – was können Jugendliche tun?” Plan a conference for 16-18 year olds including the advertisement and programme with keynote lectures and topics for roundtable discussion.
“Vorsprung durch Technik – Rückschritt für die Natur?” Write a blogpost or create a video with this title.
Record yourself giving a presentation on “Fahrerloser Verkehr – Utopie oder künftige Wirklichkeit?” or “Techno-Pop – Typisch deutsch?” .
Open Competition for Groups or Classes (4+ participants)
Create a film or PowerPoint presentation with the title “Amazonas in Gefahr”.
Write and illustrate a short book for children about a migrating bird.
“Ein Roboter in der Schule!” – Create a video or song about a robot designed for helping with practical tasks in your school.
Discover German – Taster Competition (1-3 participants with no prior experience of studying German)
Years 7 to 9: Find 10 inventions from German-speaking countries and the German word for each invention. Film yourself saying the German and the English word for each of your 10 examples.
Years 10 and 11: Rewrite (in English) the Grimm Brothers’ story of “The Frog Prince” (Der Froschkönig) with the title “The Robot Prince”, setting it in a real modern German-speaking city and including 15 German compound nouns (like Frosch+König).
Years 12 and 13: Write a blogpost on the topic “Will machine translation make human translators obsolete?” and support your argument with examples from German.
Continuing the careers theme, today on Adventures on the Bookshelf we’re sharing some glimpses of the many career paths our graduates in Russian have followed. These quotations from our former students were gathered in 2016. They were originally featured on the Creative Mulitlingualism website. Here are a handful – more will follow in the coming weeks…
Where has your degree in Russian taken you?
“I now live in Vienna and am working as a translator at the UN, the International Atomic Energy Authority and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, mostly translating from Russian.”
“I moved to a business intelligence firm in the city, where I specialised as an analyst on Russia and the former Soviet Union. I undertook due diligence and intelligence analysis on businessmen, corporations and politicians, looking for signs of corruption, criminal activity and unsavoury connections. I was using my Russian (and at times also Polish) on a daily basis, scouring Russian-language news articles, legal records, corporate registries and blog sites, as well as speaking to human intelligence sources on the ground. I’ve recently begun a two-year-Master’s of International Affairs in Berlin, and hope to spend the second year of the degree abroad at Columbia University in New York, specialising in security and human rights in Russia and the former Soviet Union.”
“I worked in Moscow for 4 years, first at the BBC Monitoring Service for a year and a half (translating news broadcasts from Russian TV and radio), which I enjoyed very much. I then moved to the Moscow Times. I’ve now gone back to university in London and am doing an M.Sc. in Speech and Language Therapy.”
“I did an M.A. at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London, and started working at the BBC. I spent a total of 6 years with the BBC – from admin to on-air journalism, and loved it. From news producing in the World Service newsroom, to a 3-week research trip to Pakistan. Then moved to Moscow to work with the RIA Novosti translation department (on Russian government websites). I’ve been in Moscow for 5 years and am now a Consultant in PR and Financial IR, in a consultancy specialising in Russia, the former Soviet Union and emerging markets.”
“I’m an installation artist and writer, also a translator specialising in art and architecture (from German into English as I live in Austria) and occasionally fiction. I’ve also worked as a cultural journalist.”
“I run a language learning website through which I sell intensive German, Russian and Greek courses and learning materials, while also organising international conferences on language learning and multilingualism, and working with organisations such as the British Council and the European Union to promote multilingualism worldwide, while also writing a book on language learning.”
“I initially worked as the PA to a wine critic for a few months while applying for grad schemes. I ended up in my current job (as a strategist in a branding agency) almost by chance, but am very much enjoying it. As the only person in the agency who speaks Russian, I’m often called on for translations and general cultural insight.”
These are just a handful of the possible career options in languages. Truly, the world is your oyster!
This post was written by Cecilia, who is studying German sole at Wadham College. Earlier this summer Cecilia was named one of the first recipients of our new Lidl Prizes: awards that have been generously donated by Lidl to promote and celebrate the study of German language and culture. In this post, Cecilia tells us how she used her prize to fund a trip to Gemany.
I was really grateful to win the Lidl prize for academic achievement in German sole this summer; it enabled me to experience Germany in a whole new way. With my prize money, I visited friends in Detmold, in the north of Germany, and Eisenach, a town in the former GDR. I then took a train to Munich, where I stayed with a friend I’d met at Oxford, and even visited Austria for the first time, venturing to Salzburg. I was fascinated by the way in which the language and culture differs across German speaking countries.
My first stop was Detmold, where I spent a few days staying with a teacher who had visited my school while I was doing my A-levels. I was really interested in the way in which my Gastfamilie did their bit for the environment. Just by accompanying them on their weekly shop, I got to see Detmold’s Bio-Supermarkt and a shop that used no plastic whatsoever! Whilst I am yet to come across such shops where I live in Hull, I am determined to follow Germany’s good influence and reduce my own plastic use.
I then took the train to Eisenach, where I stayed with a girl whom I know through a mutual friend. Far from the green smoothies and kale I had been eating in Detmold, I was able to try much more traditional food, with the Grandad even teaching me how to make Rinderroulade and Thüringer Klöße. I also enjoyed going to school with my Gastschwester, who is studying for her Abitur. I even learnt about Effi Briest, a text which I loved studying in first year, sharing ideas with students in German about this iconic read! But most interesting of all in my time in Eisenach was having the opportunity to hear about life in the GDR. Practically knowing Das Leben der Anderen off by heart from my A-level studies, I was keen to hear my Gastfamilie’s first-hand accounts of the system. I was particularly surprised by my Gastschwester’s remark that she sometimes wished the wall still stood today.
Different again was my time in Munich. I spent the week staying with my friend from university, who is doing a tech internship there. I really enjoyed being part of a flat share; it made me look forward to my year abroad where I’ll be living with German speakers who are my age! It was really interesting to chat with these students and young professionals about everything from relationships and their volunteering to European politics. The Bavarian countryside was really beautiful and completely different to anything I had seen before in Germany. Reading Schiller by Lake Starnberg was definitely a highlight of my trip. I even got the chance to make a fleeting visit to Salzburg, which made me realise I’d love to get to know Austria better.
This blog post was written by Franklin, a second-year student studying Spanish and Portuguese. Here, Franklin tells us about Eduardo Lalo’s stay in Oxford and the way it shone a spotlight on the Spanish-speaking Caribbean.
Every term, a number of academics from countries in the ‘Global South’ – a term that refers to countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean whose economies are small to medium-sized – arrive in Oxford as TORCH Global South Visiting Fellows. TORCH, short for The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities, collaborates with an Oxford-based academic to sponsor and support the academic whilst they are here hosting events to do with their research interests and current projects.
One of the academics Oxford welcomed in ‘Trinity’ term (summer term) was Eduardo Lalo, Professor of Literature at the University of Puerto Rico and a multidisciplinary artist, whose work spans creative writing, drawing and photography. Eduardo’s academic host in Oxford was María del Pilar Blanco, Associate Professor of Spanish American Literature and Tutorial Fellow at Trinity College; together, they devised a range of events throughout the term for him to showcase his work and engage with the local and university communities.
The first of those events was a seminar series entitled ‘The Mis-invention of the Caribbean’. In the three seminars that comprised the series, which brought together students, researchers and members of the wider Oxford community, Eduardo examined the literature of the encounter between the Caribbean and its peoples and Europeans, with key texts including Christopher Columbus’s journal, dating from 1493, and the edition of it annotated by Bartolomé de las Casas, a Spanish cleric whose writings chart the first decades of the colonization of the Caribbean. The series reconsidered the historiography surrounding the ‘discovery’ of the Caribbean, revealing that, at the heart of Columbus’ journal, lie a number of problematics and points of contention, and that, as a text, it cannot always be taken at face value. Beyond Columbus, Eduardo explored works by English travellers in the nineteenth century – texts by such figures as James A. Froude and Spenser St. John – and how they relate in style and content to Columbus’s fifteenth-century diary. In particular, Eduardo analyzed the recurrence of the cannibal as a figure that European writers return to again and again to represent their cultural others.
Alongside his three-part seminar series, Eduardo led a separate creative writing workshop for a group of ten students. After a short question-and-answer session, Eduardo, through a range of exercises, invited seminar-goers to consider the importance of the notion of writing in space (the space of a page of a book, for instance). Those in attendance enjoyed the opportunity to think creatively about, and move through, approaches to creative writing.
San Juan, Puerto Rico. Photo by Ramiro Collazo on Unsplash
Aside from his more academic seminars and creative writing workshop, members of the Oxford community were able to attend an exhibition of his photography, entitled ‘Deudos’, or ‘Death Debts’, held at St John’s College. Eduardo’s black-and-white images of life in Puerto Rico, taken between 2012 and 2018, bring to the fore in powerful detail the realities of day-to-day life in what has been termed the world’s ‘oldest colony’ (Puerto Rico remains a commonwealth of the United States). Held over the course of the fourth week of term, the exhibition was well attended and its venue appropriate, in the light of the recent announcement by St John’s College’s that it will launch a new research project, named ‘St John’s and the Colonial Past’, to examine the role the college played in creating and maintaining Britain’s overseas empire. Eduardo’s exhibition seemed apt at a time when the Oxford community is opening discussions about decolonial approaches to art and scholarly work.
Eduardo’s term as a TORCH Global South Visiting Fellow, then, shone a spotlight on the relative lack of research that is done in Oxford on the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, compared with that done on Spain and South America. His seminar series was a very useful follow-up to Professor Blanco’s lectures in ‘Hilary’ term (spring term) on ‘Literature of the Spanish Caribbean’, providing attendees with important historical context as far as the literary history of the Caribbean is concerned. Equally, it was enjoyable and insightful to explore new approaches to creative writing and to engage with photography, two aspects of the arts under-represented and under-explored in Oxford curricula: approaches that challenge us to think of long-established canons from a decolonial perspective.
A blog for students and teachers of Years 11 to 13, and anyone else with an interest in Modern Foreign Languages and Cultures, written by the staff and students of Oxford University. Updated every Wednesday!
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