Modern Languages Interview - Wish I'd Known (Expert Oxford & Cambridge Application Advice)
When you open that email telling you that you’ve been invited to interview for Modern Languages, you’re probably filled with happiness and dread in equal measure. Hopefully, by the time you’ve finished reading this short guide to Modern Languages interviews, you’ll feel a bit more at ease.
What’s the Format?
Unfortunately, unlike many other subjects, the Modern Languages interview structure varies depending on the languages you are doing and the college to which you are applying. However, there are, broadly speaking, two main elements to a Languages interview: linguistic competence in the target language (or general linguistic facility if taking a language ab initio) and literary analysis. Some colleges choose to assess these separately, by having an interview in the language – often with a tutor and a native speaker – and a larger literary interview with representatives from a variety of different languages. This means you might be faced with quite a large panel – possibly even four or five people. Although this might seem daunting, it can actually be a benefit – during my interview, a Spanish tutor stepped in to stop what he thought was an unfair question from a French tutor!
During the literary interview, they are likely to give you a short piece of prose or poetry, either in English or the target language, and get you to talk it through with them. If you have studied English, they might expect a more technical and structured approached, but it really is not a disadvantage if you have not studied literature much, so long as you have prepared well. They are looking for your reaction to the poetry, and then whether you can analyse why it has inspired that feeling in you. Students are often tempted to disagree with suggestions made by the tutors because they have been told to stand their ground. Of course, sometimes this is the case, but to paraphrase one tutor: enough students trip themselves up of their own accord, that often when we gently suggest something, we are trying to set them back on the right track. Remember, that the interview is basically a mock tutorial – you are being assessed, but the tutors will also challenge you and lead you in different directions to try to see how well you respond to new information under pressure. After all, if you are accepted, you will be doing this for a couple of hours every week over the coming years.
So, if the format isn’t fixed, how am I supposed to prepare?
The preparation required for the language element is very clearly defined – it resembles what you probably did before the aptitude test. The same grammatical points are likely to be tested. For example, I was asked to go through the mistakes I made in my aptitude test. Don’t get me wrong, this is in some ways very daunting but, on the flip side, you have something identifiable to work on in the lead up to interview, which can be great for settling your nerves.
By contrast, the literary element can feel like a bit of a shot in the dark: it’s very difficult to predict what you’ll be asked. However, there are a number of things you can do to make sure you give the best possible account of yourself. The key is simple: read, read and keep reading. There is no requirement to have taken English literature in order to study Modern Languages, so they aren’t expecting a finished article with in-depth knowledge of literary debates. Instead, they want to see a passion for reading, and critical engagement with what you have read. There are a number of tricks you can employ to help with this. The first is to be confident handling all the material in your personal statement. In fact, when writing your statement, a cautious policy of ‘if in doubt, leave it out’, is probably best adopted. The second is to make sure that some of the stuff you have read isn’t in your personal statement. That means you either need to hold back some of your related reading, or you need to read fervently between the end of the aptitude tests and interview time. The tutors are looking for intellectual curiosity and independence, so I would recommend reading things that are in some way related to one another and working hard on trying to see links between them. They don’t want just to see that you are a general reader, but rather an analytical reader.
What to read?
People are often tempted to go for the greatest hits of the target literature when preparing for the interview, but I would be wary of this. The difficulty of saying something cogent about, say, Don Quixote or The Divine Comedy, when you haven’t been taught it, puts you at risk of not showing off your actual potential.
For this reason, short stories or poetry collections are often a good place to start. Should you decide to do this, it is important to think not only about the content of the work but also the importance of the genre. Speaking to your Doxa tutor or teachers at school is definitely the best way to decide what to read.
Clothing
In general, I would try not to stress about this too much. I think it is important to be well turned-out, but what style of clothing you choose is about what makes you feel comfortable. I chose to wear a suit because it helped me get in to the right frame of mind personally, but I know plenty of people who did the opposite. Especially in Modern Languages, tutors are likely to be uninterested in what you’re wearing: it’s what you’re saying that counts.
Finally… (try to) relax!
This is probably the hardest, but most important, thing of all. It’s not what you answer but how you get there that interests them. Being relaxed will help you engage with the material, and the tutors themselves, which will undoubtedly leave a better impression. At the end of the day, students who are accepted will spend a lot of time discussing things with these tutors over the course of their undergraduate studies, and the tutors want to see someone who will be stimulating but receptive, and therefore a pleasure to teach.
This article was written by Kieran (Oxford - Modern Languages).
If you find this content useful, please visit Kieran's profile for further information on applying to Oxbridge. Alternatively, book support now with Kieran, using the form below.
Author: Kieran - Oxford
BA Modern Languages
I graduated in 2017 with a First in French and Spanish from Oxford. Whilst there,I fell in love with mentoring so, since graduating and moving to London to do a law conversion, I have continued working as a mentor in my spare time.
