¡Viva languages!
Are you about to decide on your GCSE options? Or are you teacher supporting students making this choice? This page is for you.
Whether you love languages and have already decided to continue at GCSE - or whether you are still making your mind up: we have put together this page for you to find out where languages can take you. Our students at the University of Manchester study a huge variety of languages at degree level, or as an extracurricular subject in our language centre.
Have a look at the videos below to hear from current and former languages students at our university - and have fun exploring languages further through our activities links and taster sessions.
We have also added a resource area for teachers where we offer downloadable resources to run an in-classsroom Spanish/French/German breakout challenge.
Videos & Resources
Why study languages? Introductory talk
There are many ways languages can enrich our lives when it comes to future careers, cultural knowledge and being a citizen in the world and in a multilingual society. See how in this video.
The talk is supported by further resources for students (with pre-, while- and post-listening activities) and resources for teachers:
On a mobile? You might watch the video more easily on YouTube
Our students: How we study languages at university
Do you like languages but aren’t sure what taking them further would look like? Our students found themselves exactly at that point when they were your age – so let them talk you through what they did to get to university, and what it’s like.
What do you study on a language course?
Ben
Ben studies Russian and Spanish – Russian from beginners level, Spanish from advanced after his A-levels. Hear him talk about his path to uni and his favourite modules now:
On a mobile? You might be able to access this more easily on YouTube: click here
Isabelle
Isabelle also does Spanish after completing an A-level in it, and picked up Italian from scratch. She speaks about why she chose to do languages at university and her favourite module, “Cultures of Revolutions in Latin America”:
On a mobile? You might be able to access this more easily on YouTube: click here
Brigitta
Brigitta studies French and Italian. Here, she discusses her favourite aspects of the course and her amazing plans for her Year Abroad in France, Canada and Italy:
On a mobile? You might be able to access this more easily on YouTube: click here
What is the Year Abroad?
All our language students spend a year studying or working in a foreign country/countries. This is an important and exciting part of their course and it happens in the third year of their four-year modern languages degree.
Adam
Adam studied Business and Management and Japanese. He spent his year abroad at a university just outside Tokyo:
On a mobile? You might be able to access this more easily on YouTube: click here
Nathalie
Nathalie spent a year studying in Spain and working in Portugal – and it’s fair to say that she loved it:
On a mobile? You might be able to access this more easily on YouTube: click here
Valentina
Valentina's course took her to Beijing:
On a mobile? You might be able to access this more easily on YouTube: click here
Our alumni: Careers with languages
Think that language experts can only work in the field of education or as translators? Hmm…
Discover what some of our former students have gone on to do. You might also like to check out what the University's Careers Sevice has to say about careers with languages.
Written profiles
Some of our alumni (=former students) have written short pieces for us:
- Shona - Speech and Language Therapist
- Frances - International Dispute Lawer
- Steven - United Nations
- Miriam - Sports Journalist
Video Profiles
Others have recorded these short videos:
Georgia: Software Company
On a mobile? You might be able to access this more easily on YouTube: click here
Grace: TV Production Company
On a mobile? You might be able to access this more easily on YouTube: click here
Robert: English Teacher in Italy
On a mobile? You might be able to access this more easily on YouTube: click here
Alicia: English Teacher in France
On a mobile? You might be able to access this more easily on YouTube: click here
Explore further
Taster sessions – try a new language
Try our introductions to new languages here (you may spot some familiar faces from the videos above)
World of Languages
This fab website - put together by colleagues at the universities of Cambridge, Nottingham, Edinburgh and Queen's Belfast - will have you playing games and tackling quizzes to discover the hidden treasures of languages. Complete all three levels: Languages and Me, Languages around Me and Languages in the World.
Classroom Resources for Teachers - Breakout Room Challenge
This in-classroom activity covers one lesson (ca 45 mins - 1 hour):
A five-piece group from UK is poised to win La France a du talent!/ Das Supertalent / ¡Tienes talento, España! The other finalists don’t think a group from abroad should win, so they lock the Brits into their dressing room. If the UK group doesn’t get to the stage within 40 minutes, they will be declared disqualified. To get out of the room they must solve puzzles to show their ability in the foreign language, get the code to unlock the door and make it to the stage.
Download all resources and the teacher overview below.
The original French breakout room was devised by Durham County Council, who kindly let us use their idea for our German and Spanish versions.
French breakout room
The original breakout room from Durham County Council is here
We designed a version without the comparative/superlative activity, which his available as a zip download here
German breakout room
Get the German version via a zip download here
Spanish breakout room
The Spanish zip download is here