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I have an interview at Oxford uni! | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| demie Triglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4031 days ago 12 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Japanese, Slovenian | Message 1 of 8 03 December 2013 at 7:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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In 8 days, I have to go to Oxford University (Somerville College) for an interview to do
a BA in French there and I'm really worried D: I've only been studying French (at all) since May and I assume they'll take that into account, but I'm really conscious of how stilted and unfluent I feel like I'll sound when I speak. Does anyone have any advice? Myself, I'm thinking I should try and Skype with people in French (any offers btw?), make videos of my self speaking French and ask for critique, revise vocabulary, and watch a lot of films. Is there anything else? What do you recommend? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4349 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes  Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 2 of 8 03 December 2013 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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8 days?
I'd say forget critique, review every single audio dialogue you can, and speak french all the time, even to yourself. Tune in a news radio station and listen all day long. Above all, have confidence. Show them you are willing to improve fast, even if now you are not perfect. And show no fear. I hope you give us the good news in 9 days! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5523 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 8 03 December 2013 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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You've definitely got some good ideas!
Here are some short-term ways to fake a higher level of proficiency. They seem to work for me; no guarantees for anybody else. :-) - If you do nothing else, get Boris Shekhtman's How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately. Lots of good tricks here for using "islands", preparing for likely topics, stalling for time, etc. He spent a lot of time preparing people for FSI exams, and he never had enough time to actually teach people enough new language to make a big difference. So he focused on exploiting what they had. - From now until your exam, strongly consider doing "All French All The Time", to steal an idea from Khatzumoto. Everything you do between now and then should be done in French if there's any way at all to do it. This will "activate" your French to the greatest extent possible, and get your brain used to operating in French. Non-stop immersion can buy you at least half a CEFR level in speaking skill, especially if you manage to shut down your English internal monologue almost completely. Or at least this has always been true for me. - Do lots of self-talk, both on general subjects and on likely interview topics. Keep your internal monologue in French. Write 100 word essays every day and get them corrected. (Lang-8 is useful for this, but it takes time to make friends with competent correctors.) If you don't know how to say something, look it up on Linguee. - Strongly consider working with a tutor on likely interview topics. - Lots of Skype time with French speakers is also an excellent idea. That's all I can think of. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5366 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 4 of 8 03 December 2013 at 8:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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The "islands" advice is good. Sometimes on short notice I have to speak to customers about fairly technical topics and I put together a few "islands" and practice them. I can anticipate reasonably well what topics might come up. I would imagine you could prepare a few "islands" that you could work into almost any type of conversation in you interview setting. A cool thing about "islands" is that once you whip off a good "island" you will feel very confident during the rest of the conversation.
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| Lykeio Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4235 days ago 120 posts - 357 votes | Message 5 of 8 03 December 2013 at 8:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Bah you shouldn't have mentioned your college is Somerville, since I'm now really,
really, tempted to ask if you're a woman. You'll see when you get here, haha. If you had asked a few weeks ago I could have given you something more detailed, found a friend who has passed through the mod langs course and got detailed advice. Something similar came up a while back for someone wanting to study languages and I gave some advice that would helpful to you if you can find it. First, emks advice is good, really good, like you will probably end up using it in job interviews. Second, as I've previously explained the courses here aren't "how good is your French?" but "how clever are you at X series of tasks in any given language?" you'll be expected to read and parse literature, modern history, politics and even linguistics if you like. The course is interdisciplinary. I've stressed this before whenever Oxon comes up but it always gets ignored, so ok... They will ask you what literature you've read, what you thought about it and so on. As for the language itself, they contextualise your studies and look for ability not knowledge. Do what emk says but don't sweat it too much, you've been given the interview, just perform the best you possibly can. Remember, no one is there to trip you up and despite what sore losers tell you the interview process is fair and meant to help you, not antagonise you. Good luck. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| chokofingrz Pentaglot Senior Member England Joined 5180 days ago 241 posts - 430 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Japanese, Catalan, Luxembourgish | Message 6 of 8 04 December 2013 at 2:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Since an Oxford interview is quite a specific (and nerve-wracking) opportunity, my advice is to find one or two educated adults (academics, teachers, mentors, family friends etc.) who are prepared to conduct several (at least 3) mock interviews with you before the date arrives.
In a nutshell, my advice is: don't stress about trying to "cram" with French in these 8 days. Your level is not going to improve measurably in a week. The main thing is to be well-prepared for the pressure of being interviewed, so you remain composed and can make best use of the French you know, rather than having a meltdown. I do subscribe to the idea of islands though. Spend some time to at least prepare and memorise a few of these on topics that are likely to come up. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| chokofingrz Pentaglot Senior Member England Joined 5180 days ago 241 posts - 430 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Japanese, Catalan, Luxembourgish | Message 7 of 8 04 December 2013 at 2:38am | IP Logged | ||
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Also: rather than watching many French films, just watch one good one and write a short speech about it so you can impress the interviewers with your insights on French cinema.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4819 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 8 of 8 04 December 2013 at 3:04am | IP Logged | ||
Sounds like a good idea, but I'd suggest having a backup one as well, in case they decide to find out if the first film is the only French film you have ever seen (which is probably unlikely, in any case). From what I've heard about Oxford (and Cambridge), as well as all the things people have already mentioned, I think they like people who stand out a bit from the crowd. Which doesn't mean playing up your eccentricities, or furiously trying to learn unicycle-juggling, but try to think of something which you can talk about confidently, and which will help them to remember you long after they have stopped yawning over the few doxen candidates they interviewed after you. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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