My Language Journey

Hi everyone!

My name is Gemma and I’m one of the ambassadors for Routes into Languages West Midlands. I’ve just finished my degree in French and Spanish at Aston University and have been an avid linguist for a number of years, so I’d love to tell you a bit more about how I became interested in languages and how I have got to where I am now!

The start of my journey

My language learning journey started at school at quite a young age; I started learning French in Year 1 when I was 6 years old, and I started Spanish in Year 8 at age 12. I always remember really beginning to enjoy French in Year 7 when we moved away from games and fun videos to working on more formal academic work using more vocabulary and having the opportunity to write short pieces of our own in French, I also took to Spanish really well when I started that a year later. When it came to choosing GCSE options, my incredibly supportive teachers were very keen to see me take both French and Spanish, however it took a lot of arm-twisting as I didn’t believe in myself. Despite excelling in languages in earlier years at school, I was a bit slower in other subjects and experienced a lot of difficulties with Maths and Science; I automatically succumbed to the idea that my struggles in these other areas meant that I wouldn’t be able to handle doing two languages at GCSE because I thought “only clever people can do two languages, I’m not clever!”. I’m very grateful for my teachers who made me realise that my weaknesses did not overshadow my strengths; I also feel that having the uphill battle of even trying to achieve a pass in my weakest subjects really humbled me and made me appreciate my ability in languages even more!

Me outside my office [on placement]!

What else did I do with Languages?

One great thing about Languages is that you can use them in a variety of ways outside of the classroom, even when you’re still learning! Not long after I finished my first year of sixth form, I started tutoring my next-door neighbour’s son in French for a couple of hours on the weekends, and a couple of years later I managed to take on two students in need of a tutor to help them with GCSE Spanish; it was such a fantastic first opportunity for proper work experience and really made me be sure that I knew the basics of French and Spanish grammar inside out, which was beneficial for my own studies too! Of course, let’s not forget my current role as a Routes into Languages ambassador; I have thoroughly enjoyed presenting to a wide range of schools this year and hearing the pupils’ insights during the interactive elements of my presentations, and it’s also been a great way for me to practice a number of soft skills, such as how to adapt my communication style to suit my target audience.

Saying goodbye to Air France on my last day

My year abroad experience

During my third year of University, I was really able to put my language skills to practice on my placement year abroad, which is a compulsory element of all language degrees. For my first placement, I worked at Air France in Toulouse as an English Language Assistant from August-December 2019. My job was to provide weekly English conversation classes for about 65 employees since, several years ago Air France merged with the Dutch airline KLM, and English became the working language of the partnership. I really enjoyed getting to know the city of Toulouse and having the chance to chat to my colleagues about all sorts of topics (if you know me in real life, you’ll know I love to blab on incessantly about the randomest of things, so this job was great for me! ). In order to practice my French during my time at Air France, I would often go to the office canteen with my colleagues and chat with them over the typical long and leisurely French lunch hour and I would also make sure that I went out at weekends to do activities where I could get further exposure to the language, one of my favourites was a guided tour in French around the Airbus site where the now retired famous Concorde plane lives!

La Barigoude: The main site in Toulouse

After I finished in France, I was supposed to spend five months in Madrid working as Translation and Marketing Assistant at a law firm, however, only six weeks into this new job I had to leave at very short notice due to COVID-19 and spend the rest of my time working remotely. I was sad to leave as I was really getting a feel for

the city and I had made some lovely friends in a weekly coffee meetup organised by a girl from Peru who would offer free Spanish conversation classes in a café for foreign students who all wanted to improve their language skills. I had only known everyone for three weeks and was really excited to explore Madrid with them in the summer months but sadly, given how quickly the situation escalated, we never even got to say goodbye to each other. I hope we can all meet up again once its safe to do so!

The beautiful sunset on my way home from work

Now I have finished my course, I am sad to no longer be a languages student as the support from both my friends and lecturers here have made Aston feel like a home away from home these last four years, however I am lucky to not be straying too far away from everyone quite yet since I will begin the next part of my Aston journey in September when I will be studying MA International Relations and Global Governance. Throughout my undergraduate degree I became fascinated with the politics of the countries where my two languages are spoken and of the European Union as a political institution, so this master’s course will enable me to build upon my knowledge from the last four years and will help me to develop a specialism that I can apply my languages to. I hope to be able to go into a job where I can combine all the academic disciplines that I love, maybe working in a think tank or in another similar type of organisation, let’s see where the next year takes me!

Friday Drinks at the firm

Thank you so much for reading and good luck with your language learning journey!