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Home / Information for applicants / What to expect in your subject / Modern Languages & joint schools

Modern Languages & joint schools interviews

Thank you for applying to Oxford to study one of our Modern Languages courses.

All candidates will have two interviews with Hertford tutors. If you have applied to do two languages or subjects, there will be one interview for each, each around 25-30 minutes long. If you have applied to study just one language, your second interview will be a 20-minute general interview with tutors who are specialists in another language. If you have applied for Beginners’ German, you will have a third interview relating to that course.

Language interviews

The exact format of interviews will vary but here is an outline of what to expect. Interviews will be conducted primarily in English, although it is usual for a section to be devoted to conversation in the relevant modern language (except if you are applying for a beginners’ course). We may ask you to do some of the following tasks in interviews for individual languages: undertake short language exercises to be shared on screen during the interview, discuss a short literary text to be shared on screen during the interview, and discuss your wider reading.

Please don’t worry if you have not studied any literature in the language you hope to begin studying. We are looking for aptitude and potential to study language and literature, so we’re interested in finding out how you think about what you read more than testing acquired knowledge. In interviews for Linguistics, there will be general questions on your interest in the subject and your language experience and you will be presented with a language dataset to see how you think about linguistic data. In all interviews, you shouldn’t worry if you are asked questions which seem surprising or challenging. We don’t expect you to know the ‘right answer’ straight away, so take your time to think and, if you need to, ask the interviewer to clarify their question.
WATCH A DEMONSTRATION INTERVIEW

Philosophy interviews (joint school candidates)

Before your 45-minute Philosophy interview, you will be given some pre-reading consisting of four or five short questions. These may concern puzzles (e.g. apparent paradoxes), arguments (e.g. asking you to assess whether the logic is correct), or imaginary scenarios to think about (e.g. raising some moral issue). Sometimes there will be a right answer, but mostly we prefer to choose problems to which a number of different approaches may be equally reasonable. So this pre-reading is not a ‘test’, and we won’t be giving a mark to your responses to the questions. Rather, its point is to introduce you to topics which we can then discuss in the interview, thus enabling us to cover much more in the limited time available.

The interview will focus mainly on the pre-reading topics, though we might also invite you to discuss something on your personal statement. What we’re looking for is the ability to understand a problem, think carefully and logically about it, explain your thoughts, and respond intelligently to considerations for and against. Whatever view you take, we will raise objections, so don’t take this as a sign that you have made a mistake! Be prepared to argue in defence of your position, but also willing to change position if your realise that it has become indefensible.

Logistics and technology

You may have further interviews at other colleges. This does not mean that you have or have not got a place at Hertford: interviews at other colleges are intended to maximize the chances of candidates getting a place at the University regardless of the college to which you applied or were assigned. You should check your email regularly during this period to see whether you have any additional interviews.

You will need a device with access to Microsoft Teams, a microphone and webcam to take part in the interviews. Take a look at our Online Interviews Technology page to find out more and watch an introductory video. If you have any questions or concerns about the technology set-up, you should email undergraduate.admissions@hertford.ox.ac.uk and we’ll do our best to help.

Meet some of our interviewing tutors

Dr Katherine Lunn-Rockliffe
Tutorial Fellow in French & Prevent Lead
Dr Elsa Court
College Lecturer in Modern Languages (French Lectrice)

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