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.
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.
Modern Languages Open Day 2022 photo (c) John Cairns
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.
Modern Languages Open Day 2022 photo (c) John Cairns
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!
The Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages is delighted to be running its second Beginners’ Languages TasterDay in March 2025!
Alongside our usual Modern Languages Open Day (which will take place on Saturday 17th 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.
Modern Languages Open Day 2022 photo (c) John Cairns
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:
Applications are now OPEN for UNIQ 2025! Will UNIQ help shape your future?
What is UNIQ? The UNIQ programme helps UK state school students with good GCSE grades or equivalent make a more successful application to Oxford, with a sustained contact programme and in-person residential. UNIQ is there to support young people from underrepresented backgrounds at Oxford explore new subjects, speak to current students and learn first-hand about the application process and what life might be like at Oxford.
If you take part in UNIQ, you’ll have access to a range of activities to support your preparation for university applications. This includes help with admissions tests, the interview process and getting to grips with student life once you’re at university. Not only will you be able to experience student life at Oxford whilst receiving support with your university application, you’ll also have the opportunity to make new friends whilst exploring new and exciting subjects.
What Modern Languages courses are available? For Modern Languages, there will be courses available for Spanish, French, and German. Each varied course allows you to explore several exciting elements of degree-level language studies, such as language, literature, theatre, film, and linguistics, and gives you the opportunity to have a taster of two other European languages at beginners’ level.
How do I apply? Applying is quick and simple – just register and fill out the form on the UNIQ website. It shouldn’t take you more than 15 minutes or so. Before you apply you should check that you meet our eligibility requirements and browse our courses for a first and second choice.
Applications close on 23 January. You can find out more about the programme and selection criteria on the UNIQ website (www.uniq.ox.ac.uk) and by following us on Instagram (@OxfordUNIQ). If you have any queries about the applications process, you can check out our FAQs or contact us at uniq@admin.ox.ac.uk.
On the blog this week, final year German and Portuguese student, Aaron, reflects on some of the practical elements of organising and preparing for his year abroad…
My name’s Aaron, I study German and Portuguese at Wadham, and as I’m writing this blog post, I’ve been back at Oxford for one term since my year abroad. For the first half of my year abroad, which is the time I’ll mostly be focusing on here, I was based in Berlin. Before my year abroad, I had to take some time away from my studies due to some personal issues, so I hadn’t been in Oxford for two years before I went to Berlin, meaning I also hadn’t really spoken much German! As you can imagine, I was definitely nervous to go. I’m lucky enough to have had the opportunity for the odd visit to Germany before, but living on my own so far from home was this strange mix of nerves and excitement… The thing is, the one thing I think everyone comes to agree over their time at uni (whether at Oxford or not) is that you absolutely have to love what you do, and I really do love speaking German, so I’d been looking forward to the year abroad for a long time.
For a year abroad as an Oxford student, you agree what you’re going to do with your college tutor (often called your organising tutor – you may have two if you do two languages), with the general options being: teaching in a school via the British Council, studying at a university, or finding some form of internship. That said, I was doing a virtual internship with a company based in Hamburg, because I had a couple of friends in Berlin and wanted to be able to find other opportunities while I was out there.
Finding accommodation can seem super daunting, but it’s one of those things that always kind of works itself out – in my case, I found an apartment through a private renting website that was pretty central, but the great thing about Berlin (and most of Germany, to be honest) is that the transport links are much better than I’m used to, coming from Newcastle, so you could get to just about any part of the city within an hour. A lot of people tend to use something like AirBnB to find a temporary place to stay, then find a more permanent place after a couple of weeks. This is a great tip for saving money as you can usually find better deals locally.
The other biggest hurdle to tackle is visas – this is definitely something you need to research well before you arrive in your chosen country, around the same time as searching for internships and study places. Lots of countries require visas to be dealt with before you arrive in the country, and this can require sending your passport off too, so it’s vital to get this sorted in good time. There are also often requirements for what you need to do once you arrive in the country; for example, in Germany, you usually have to register at an address when you’re staying for over a certain amount of time.
Having said all of this, one of the great things about the year abroad is the flexibility of it all. For example, lots of people will get a study placement that lasts maybe three months, but book their accommodation for an extra three months and either travel around the country (especially with trains in continental Europe generally being drastically cheaper than in the UK) or try to find an internship, etc. I personally found a lot of time for this outside of my internship hours, but obviously this depends on exactly what your placement requires.
In terms of staying connected to Oxford, it was actually a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, societies and student groups on the whole have moved a lot of their stuff online, making it really easy to get involved with from afar. I wrote articles for R:Ed, Africa’s largest lifelong learning and mentoring resource, edited for a number of student publications and managed to set up my own student-led project, all from the comfort of my Berlin flat. This meant it was really easy to keep my finger on the pulse of the student community in Oxford and still feel connected.
That’s all from me for now – next time, I’m going to talk a bit more about my specific experience in Berlin and what sort of things you can do on the year abroad once you’ve dealt with all the admin!
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”.
Photo by Dave Photoz on Unsplash
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.
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.
There is still time to enter the Oxford German Network’s essay competition for sixth formers, ‘A German Classic’, offering prizes of £500, £300, and £100!
Whilst our registration deadline to receive free copies of our set text Schiller’s Die Räuber has passed, we still welcome entrants who will receive all of the online resources we provide for the 2024 prize.
Die Räuber is a play that revolves around the big questions of sentiment and reason, freedom and law. The plot centres on the brothers Karl and Franz Moor and their dispute over their father’s affection and inheritance. Karl is slandered by his younger brother Franz, whereupon their father disowns Karl. Karl becomes the leader of a feared band of robbers but remains both haunted by his bad conscience and true to his noble intentions. Meanwhile the greedy and calculating Franz sets out to claim his father’s inheritance for himself and win over Karl’s fiancée Amalia.
Schiller wrote Die Räuber when he was around twenty years old and it made him immediately famous when it was first performed in 1782. Ever since its premiere, this rebellious play has triggered strong reactions from audiences and prompted social debates that have lost none of their relevance. Explore them for yourself by studying Die Räuber in the original – one of the iconic works of world literature!
ELIGIBILITYCRITERIA
Entrants must fulfil the following requirements as of 11 September 2024:
be beginning their final year of full-time study at a secondary school in the UK (upper-sixth form, Year 13 or S6 in Scotland);
be between the ages of 16 and 18;
hold a GCSE, IGCSE or equivalent qualification in German offered in the UK, or have at least an equivalent knowledge of German, as confirmed by their teacher;
be resident in the United Kingdom.
Entrants are not, however, expected to have prior experience of studying German literature.
Applications are now open for Wadham College‘s annual five-day Modern Languages Summer School. The residential will take place at the college, based in the centre of Oxford, from 19th to 23rd August 2024.
Summer schools are designed to give UK pupils studying in Year 12 a taste of what it’s like to be an undergraduate studying at the University of Oxford. Pupils will take part in an academic programme, live in College, meet student ambassadors studying at Oxford, and receive information, advice and guidance on applying to university. Wadham’s Summer Schools are free and the college will provide financial support to pupils to cover their travel costs.
We’re delighted to be able to run these events in-person allowing participants the best experience of life at the university. The feedback from last year’s Summer Schools was hugely positive with over a third of participants subsequently securing offers to study at the university.
“After the summer school I am much more confident that I would fit in at Oxford and feel like I am more ready to move away from home”
Summer School participant, 2022
For Modern Languages more specifically, pupils will engage in a seminar series led by Wadham’s language tutors, including language classes in their selected language of study (French, German or Spanish) with opportunities to try other languages as beginners (including German, Portuguese and Russian). Students will complete an assignment on a main topic with feedback from tutors. Pupils will also be able to receive support from current undergraduates and from the College on making successful applications to top universities.
For more information and to apply, click here: Wadham College Summer Schools. Pupils should be studying French, German or Spanish at A-level or equivalent to apply. Applications close at 5pm on 3rd May.
Great news: Round 2 of the Oxford German Olympiad 2024 is now open for entries! The Olympiad is an annual competition run by the Oxford German Network for learners and speakers of German from ages 9 to 18.
The theme of this year’s Olympiad is Kafkaesque Kreatures, taking inspiration from the animal stories by Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who gave the German and English languages the word kafkaesk / Kafkaesque to describe a weird, disturbing experience.
Image taken from the Oxford German Network website.
There are three Round 2 tasks to choose from this year, with exciting cash prizes for the winners of each task:
Oxford German Network Task
The White Rose Prize: Einen Brief schreiben
Camden House Book Proposal
Winners and runners-up will be invited to a prize-giving ceremony at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, in June 2024.
Further details about the tasks and the competition in general can be found here. The deadline for all entries is 7 March 2024at 12 noon.
Please note:
students may enter only one of the three Round 2 tasks
there are age restrictions for each task
Round 1 and Round 2 of the Olympiad are separate competitions. Students may enter both, but do not need to have entered Round 1 in order to enter Round 2.
There’s also still time to enter Round 1! Find details here.
The Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages is delighted to announce a brand new event for the 2023/24 academic year – a Beginners’ Languages TasterDay!
Alongside our usual Modern Languages Open Day (which will take place on Saturday 11th May), this year we will be running an event dedicated to our beginners’ languages courses. This new 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 2nd 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.
Photo taken from our Modern Languages Open Day 2022 photo (c) John Cairns
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
The provisional event programme can be found here.
To register for the Taster Day, students should fill out this form by 10am on Friday 23rd 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.
Photo taken from our Modern Languages Open Day 2022 photo (c) John Cairns
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:
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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