Category Archives: Events and Competitions

Events and Competitions, French, Spanish

Reminder: Flash Fiction Competitions

March 5, 2025 Schools Liaison Leave a comment

With just under a month to go until the deadline, there’s still a chance to enter our Flash Fiction Competitions in French and/or Spanish – don’t miss out on your chance to win £100! A reminder of the competition details and how you can enter can be found below…

What is Flash Fiction?

We’re looking for a complete story, written in French or Spanish, using no more than 100 words.

Did you know that the shortest story in Spanish is only seven words long?

Cuando despertó, el dinosaurio todavía estaba allí.
(When he woke up, the dinosaur was still there.)

– Augusto Monterroso Bonilla (1921-2003)

What are the judges looking for?

Our judging panel of academics will be looking for imagination and narrative flair, as well as linguistic ability and accuracy. Your use of French or Spanish will be considered in the context of your age and year group: in other words, we will not expect younger pupils to compete against older pupils linguistically. For inspiration, you can read last year’s winning entries for French here, and for Spanish here.

What do I win?

The judges will award a top prize of £100, as well as prizes of £25 to a maximum of two runners up, in each age category. Certificates will also be awarded to pupils who have been highly commended by our judges. Results as well as the winning, runner up, and highly commended stories will be published on this blog, if entrants give us permission to do so.

Poster for the 2025 Flash Fiction Competitions

How do I enter?

You can submit your story via our online forms at the links below.

French	Spanish
Years 7-9	Years 7-9
Years 10-11	Years 10-11
Years 12-13	Years 12-13

Click on the links to be taken to the correct submission form for your age/year group.

You may only submit one story per language but you are welcome to submit one story in French AND one story in Spanish if you learn or study both languages. Your submission should be uploaded as a Word document or PDF.

The deadline for submissions is 12 noon on Monday 31st March 2025.

Due to GDPR regulations, teachers cannot enter on their students’ behalf: students must submit their entries themselves.

Please note that the competition has changed slightly this year. We are now only accepting entries from UK secondary school pupils.

If you have any questions, please check our FAQs here. If these still don’t answer your question(s), please email us at schools.liaison@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk.

Bonne chance à tous! ¡Buena suerte a todos!

Applying to study modern languages, Events and Competitions, French, Italian, linguistics, Spanish, Studying at Oxford

Balliol College Modern Languages Taster Day

February 26, 2025 Schools Liaison Leave a comment

Balliol College, Oxford is delighted to be running a Modern Languages Taster Day on Tuesday 27th May 2025, 10.15 – 15.45!

Academic Taster Days are a great opportunity for students in Year 12 to spend a day exploring a subject they enjoy and might pursue at University, meet with some current students, experience a taste of academic teaching, and enjoy lunch in the dining hall.

This specific event is designed for Year 12 UK state school students who are currently studying a Language A-Level or equivalent, and who intend to apply to study French, Italian or Spanish, or Modern Languages and Linguistics as a single honours (on its own) or a joint-honours (with another language/subject) degree at Oxford University. Balliol will prioritise applications from disadvantaged students and from groups which are under-represented at the university. This event will include academic sessions, admissions information, and a demonstration interview. You will have the opportunity to speak to tutors and current undergraduates.

Before submitting an application, please ensure you can attend the day in its entirety. For many schools this event will fall in the half term holiday. The event will be held in person at Balliol College in Oxford.

You can apply here. The deadline for applications is 5pm on Tuesday 6 May 2025.

Please contact outreach@balliol.ox.ac.uk with any questions.

Applying to study modern languages, Events and Competitions, Student life, Studying at Oxford

Humanities Study Day for BAME Students

February 5, 2025 Schools Liaison Leave a comment

Oxford’s University College, Magdalen College, and the Faculties of History and Modern Languages are delighted to announce that the virtual BAME Humanities Study Day will return for 2025 on Tuesday 15th April!

This event offers UK state school students with Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME) heritage an exciting opportunity to engage with academic taster sessions from across the Humanities subjects, and also to access insight into Oxford student life and support with the admissions process.

This year, the day will open with a welcome and an introduction to the humanities subjects from current students followed by the opportunity to attend two humanities subject lectures. Students will learn more about the Oxford application process in our subject-specific admissions workshops. The day will conclude with a live student life Q&A where you will have the opportunity to ask your questions to current Oxford students from BAME backgrounds. 

*Screenshot of the Q&A with undergraduates from the 2021 Humanities Study Day*

For the academic lectures you will be able to choose from the following subjects:

Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Classics
English
History
History of Art
Modern Languages
Music
Linguistics
Philosophy
Theology.

You will be able to specify your preferred lectures on the application form.  All lectures will be recorded and available to watch after the event. If you are unable to attend live on the day but would like access to the recordings and resources, then please still submit an application via the form below.

Before attending the subject day, I had no prior ideas about attending Oxford, nor was I really interested. This was mostly because I thought Oxford was an unreachable place for someone like me, a coloured girl who does not come from a highly prestigious background, which I believed Oxford to be the opposite. Attending the study day made me realise Oxford is actually a very accessible and open place for someone of my background…

– 2023 Study Day participant

Eligibility Criteria:

Year 12
Black, Asian, or Minority Ethnic (BAME) Heritage 
Attend a UK State School (unless you have extenuating circumstances or meet several of the priority criteria listed below)
If spaces are limited, priority will be given to students who meet one or more of the following: first generation in your family to attend university, have experience of being in care, are a young carer, are eligible for Free School Meals/Pupil Premium, are from an area of deprivation or area with a low rate of progression to university.

Applications are now OPEN and will close on 26th February 2025. You can apply via this online form.

If you have any questions about this event please email one of the organisers, Nuala, at outreach@magd.ox.ac.uk.

Applying to study modern languages, Events and Competitions, French, German, Italian, linguistics, Resources for language study, Spanish, Student life, Studying at Oxford

Modern Languages Study Day

January 29, 2025 Schools Liaison Leave a comment

Study Days are a great opportunity for prospective applicants to experience life as an Oxford student for the day. Study Days will always include taster sessions for the subjects which you are interested in studying at university, but often involve information sessions on admissions, a chance to talk to current undergraduates, and a tour of the College.

Study Days are free of charge with some colleges offering additional financial support to attendees. They are open to students at UK state schools, but places are sometimes prioritised by measures of socio-economic disadvantage.

The Radcliffe Camera from Exeter College

This year, Exeter College, Oxford is hosting a series of subject days for year 11 and year 12 students attending UK state schools. These events aim to provide tailored support for students interested in exploring a range of subjects at University level.

Exeter’s Humanities and Modern Languages Study Day will be taking place on Monday 7th April at Exeter College and is open to students looking to explore any of the following University courses further: Classics, English Language and Literature, History, French, German, Italian, Linguistics, Spanish.

If you would like to attend, please register your interest here by 5pm on Monday 24th February.

If you have any questions, please get in touch: outreach@exeter.ox.ac.uk.

Applying to study modern languages, Czech, Events and Competitions, French, German, Italian, linguistics, Open Days, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Student life, Studying at Oxford

MODERN LANGUAGES OPEN DAY – Bookings Now Open!

January 15, 2025 Schools Liaison Leave a comment

We are delighted to welcome prospective students to Oxford on Saturday 17th May for our annual Modern Languages Open Day. The event will be held from 10.30am-4pm at the Examination Schools, located on the High Street in Oxford’s city centre.

*Modern Languages Open Day 2022*
*photo (c) John Cairns*

This event is a fantastic opportunity for students who are interested in learning more about our language courses, or who are still considering their options, as all of our languages will be represented at this Open Day:

French
German*
Spanish
Italian*
Russian*
Portuguese*
Modern Greek*
Czech with Slovak*
Polish*.

*All of these languages can be studied here at Oxford from beginners’ level.

Most of our Joint School degree subjects – English, History, Philosophy etc. – will also be represented at the event.

Our Modern Languages Open Day is aimed primarily at Year 12 students and their parents/guardians/teachers, but Year 11 students who are starting to think about university study are equally welcome to attend.

The Open Day will offer an overview of our Modern Languages courses and a general Q&A for prospective students in the morning*, with individual language sessions and a Q&A session for parents’/guardians’/teachers in the afternoon. Tutors and current students from the Faculty will be available throughout the day to answer questions from prospective applicants and their companions.

*Please note that, due to restricted places, only one parent/guardian/teacher may accompany each student for the morning session.

You can view the provisional event programme here.

Booking your place at this event is compulsory – you can register your attendance here. Bookings will close at midnight on 14th May 2025.

Any questions can be directed to schools.liaison@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk.

We look forward to seeing lots of you in May and welcoming you to Oxford!

Applying to study modern languages, Czech, Events and Competitions, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slavonic Languages, Studying at Oxford, Why study languages?

Beginners’ Languages Taster Day 2025

January 8, 2025 Schools Liaison Leave a comment

The Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages is delighted to be running its second Beginners’ Languages Taster Day in March 2025!

Alongside our usual Modern Languages Open Day (which will take place on Saturday 17^th May), this year we will once again be holding an event dedicated to our beginners’ languages courses. This event offers students from UK secondary schools in Year 12 or equivalent an opportunity to gain greater insight into our beginners’ languages degree programmes at Oxford. Students in Year 11 who are starting to consider their options for university are also welcome to attend.

The Taster Day will take place on Saturday 8th March in our main Faculty teaching spaces – the Taylor Institution Library and 47 Wellington Square. After an information and Q&A session in the morning, students will have the chance to attend taster sessions in two of our beginners’ languages.

The following languages will be represented at the Taster Day, with academics and current undergraduates present to provide further information about the course(s) and to answer students’ questions:

German
Portuguese
Italian
Russian
Czech (with Slovak)
Modern Greek
Polish

Last year’s inaugural event received excellent feedback from prospective applicants and their companions:

I really enjoyed the taster day, it was fascinating to learn some Russian and Italian, especially Russian as it was something I had never considered before. Everyone was friendly and it was extremely well organised. I loved it!
The Q&A was really helpful and insightful. I didn’t think that I would enjoy today or get as much out of it as I did (I thought it would be really stuffy but it wasn’t). I think that a lot of my enjoyment was due to the planning of the day as well as how lovely and welcoming everyone who was there/helping was. Thank you for giving me this opportunity.
An enjoyable day – which really opened up our daughter’s eyes to a Beginners Languages degree & the benefits of studying at Oxford University – thank you.

The provisional event programme for 2025 can be found here.

To register for the Taster Day, students should fill out this form by 12 noon on Friday 14th February so we know who to expect at the event. Please note that spaces will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, and the form will close once our maximum capacity has been reached.

We are also pleased to be able to help students who are in need of additional financial support with reasonable expenses such as travelling to and from Oxford for the event. There is a space to include this information in the registration form.

Studying a language from scratch at Oxford

Our beginners’ languages courses offer an exciting and rare opportunity for students to engage with a new language and culture for the first time, or to pick up languages they studied at GCSE. The courses are challenging yet rewarding, with many designed to bring students up to A-level standard within the first year. Therefore, we would love to welcome students who are strong linguists and/or who are looking for a new challenge at University to this event.

As well as alongside a post-A-level language, most of our beginners’ languages can be studied in conjunction with subjects from the Humanities such as English, History, Linguistics, or Philosophy, for which applicants do not need to be studying a language to A-level or equivalent. With this in mind, we would also welcome students of Humanities subjects who are interested in picking up a language at University.

For further inspiration and information, below are some links to content from our tutors and undergraduates about why taking a language from scratch is so worthwhile:

Blog post – Why study Czech?
Video – Branching Out: Picking up a language from scratch

Video – Studying German for Beginners at Oxford:

Please get in touch with schools.liaison@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk with any questions.

We look forward to seeing you on 8th March!

Events and Competitions, French, Spanish

FRENCH AND SPANISH FLASH FICTION COMPETITIONS NOW OPEN!

December 18, 2024 Schools Liaison Leave a comment

We’re delighted to announce the return of our ever-popular French and Spanish Flash Fiction competitions for UK secondary school pupils. If you are learning French and/or Spanish in Years 7-13, you are invited to send us a *very* short story to be in with a chance of winning up to £100! Read on to find out more…

What is Flash Fiction?

We’re looking for a complete story, written in French or Spanish, using no more than 100 words.

Did you know that the shortest story in Spanish is only seven words long?

Cuando despertó, el dinosaurio todavía estaba allí.
(When he woke up, the dinosaur was still there.)

– Augusto Monterroso Bonilla (1921-2003)

What are the judges looking for?

What do I win?

How do I enter?

You can submit your story via our online forms at the links below.

French	Spanish
Years 7-9	Years 7-9
Years 10-11	Years 10-11
Years 12-13	Years 12-13

Click on the links to be taken to the correct submission form for your age/year group.

The deadline for submissions is 12 noon on Monday 31st March 2025.

Due to GDPR regulations, teachers cannot enter on their students’ behalf: students must submit their entries themselves.

Please note that the competition has changed slightly this year. We are now only accepting entries from UK secondary school pupils.

If you have any questions, please check our FAQs here. If these still don’t answer your question(s), please email us at schools.liaison@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk.

Bonne chance à tous! ¡Buena suerte a todos!

Events and Competitions, Teachers

Free Online CPD Programme for Teachers

November 6, 2024 Schools Liaison Leave a comment

Exclusively for state schoolteachers and colleagues with responsibility for progression, join Trinity College for its programme which aims to provide up-to-date practical information and guidance relating to the Oxford application process and the purpose of each stage, for example, the admissions tests and interviews.

Trinity also has the broader aim of providing teachers and colleagues with guidance that will help them to support their pupils in all higher education applications, as well as those who may have the potential to apply to Oxford.

They particularly welcome colleagues from non-selective state schools who have little or no experience of the University of Oxford, pupil progression to the Russell Group or Higher Education in general.

The programme takes place online and is made up of six 1.5hr live sessions each taking place after the school day. Whilst the programme begins in January each year, teachers are encouraged to join at any point or just for those sessions they would find most helpful. As part of this programme, a free Teacher Enrichment Residential (details below) is offered, which is also completely optional.

A completion certificate is offered for those attending all six online sessions, however there is no requirement to do so. Colleagues are welcome to register and then join for just the preferred sessions.

Teacher CPD programme of sessions in 2025:

Session	Title	Date
S1	Introduction to Oxford	Monday 13th January 16:15 or Thursday 16th January 17:00
S2	Enrichment and raising attainment	Monday 3rd February 16:15 or Thursday 6th February 17:00
S3	Personal Statements	Monday 31st March 16:15 or Thursday 3rd April at 17:00
S4	Oxford Admissions Tests	Monday 12th May 16:15 or Thursday 15th May 17:00
S5	Teacher Reference Writing	Monday 9th June 16:15 or Thursday 12th June 17:00
S6	Oxford Academic Interviews	Monday 16th June 16:15 or Thursday 16th October 16:15
Residential	Teacher enrichment: fully funded 3-night residential for colleagues to explore any particular topic of personal interest in their subject area or some aspect of their teaching practice or pedagogy, using the University of Oxford’s library collections.	Easter Vacation 2026 date TBC

SIGN UP HERE and the team at Trinity will be in touch closer to January 13th with joining details.

If you have already taken part in this programme, you are very welcome to sign up for refresher support.

Please could you also share this email with other school colleagues who may like to take part and, of course, do not hesitate to get in touch with the Hannah Rolley (Head of Access, Trinity College) hannah.rolley@trinity.ox.ac.uk should you have any questions.

Events and Competitions, Translation

The Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators 2024-25!

October 30, 2024 Schools Liaison Leave a comment

Last month, The Queen’s Translation Exchange (QTE) launched the Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators for 2024-25. They sent out poetry teaching resource packs to over 1800 teachers to mark European Day of Languages (26 September) and International Translation Day (30 September).

Last year’s Anthea Bell Prize reached over 16,000 young people across the UK. This year, they’re aiming even higher! The competition window opens in February 2025, so there is still plenty of time to register and explore their excellent creative translation teaching resources.

For this year, the Translation Exchange has launched a new Russian-language strand of the Prize. The Russian-language teaching resources include an ab-initio resource designed for use by students and teachers with no previous experience of Russian. Read more about the launch of the Russian-language strand here.

QTE would love to hear from any Russian teachers interested to help them develop this strand across the year, as well as from any teachers who have used the new ab-initio resources and would be willing to share their experience. Feedback on any of the resources is also hugely appreciated. Please get in touch with the team at translation.exchange@queens.ox.ac.uk.

Events and Competitions, German, Resources for language study

OXFORD GERMAN OLYMPIAD 2025

October 23, 2024 Schools Liaison Leave a comment

The Oxford German Network have launched the 13th edition of its annual German Olympiad! The competition will run between now and March 2025 with winners being announced in the summer.

This year’s topic is “Spiel und Sport”.

There are a variety of different challenges aimed at pupils in Years 5 and 6 all the way to Years 12 and 13. Some are for individuals to enter, others are aimed at groups. There is even a taster competition for pupils who have never studied German before! From drawing to creating board games, puzzles, and video games, there’s something for everyone! Take a look at the Olympiad website for more details.

Pupils should:

Choose one of the tasks appropriate for their age group.
Complete all tasks in German, unless indicated otherwise.
Refer to the full competition details and guidelines for word count guidance.

Please note:

All entries must be submitted via the online entry form.
Each participant may only enter for one task within their age group as an individual entrant. We will only accept group entries (2-4 participants) for the “Open Competition for Groups” category.
We require a consent form for under-13 participants. Click here to download the form.

Note to teachers: Teachers will be able to submit their students´ entries in bulk. Please contact olympiad@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk for instructions.

The closing date for all entries is Thursday, 6 March 2025 at 12 noon.

If you have any questions, please contact the Olympiad Coordinator, Eva, at: olympiad@mod-langs-ox.ac.uk

We look forward to receiving lots of entries!

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!