French immersion for Oxbridge entry

[thefemaleJoshLyman]

DD is in Y12 and wants to study French and Linguistics at Oxbridge. She hasn't looked at anywhere else yet (but will). She is not a native speaker which makes things harder for her in the competitive application process so I would like to try to organise for some immersion for her next summer. She attends state school so no long private school holidays and we are away until 3rd August (it appears lots of immersion summer schools don't run in August). Has anyone organised an exchange with a French family or have any ideas or experience of similar? I am conscious that she will probably have an interview in French and want her to be able to ace this!

It might be vital for becoming fluent in the language, but absolutely not vital for getting a place at Oxford to study the language. Skills in the language are a fairly small part of the admissions process. My daughter studied a modern language at Oxford and was never very immersed for very long!

Yes, we do study English, but not as MFL (key being the F).

Sorry not trying to bang on about MML being such a different kettle of fish offer rate wise to other courses but if you look here
https://public.tableau.com/views/UniversityofOxford-AdmissionsStatistics2025ByCourse/Applications?:embed=y&:display_count=yes&:showTabs=y&:showVizHome=no

It gives an offer rate of 54%. Maybe the offer rate is higher and the other stat is the number who go having got their grades.

Also not trying to do down people who study MML, they're bloody hard esp for non-natives. Most impressive kid I know did French & German at Cambridge having had no permanent teacher through secondary school. But I wanted OP to think that absolutely DD should go for it and give it a really good shot.

Fair enough @Valleyofthedollymix happy to be wrong on this one.

Still true tho that the offer rate to application is much much lower than most other unis (assuming the applicant has PGs of the usual offer and isn't applying for an AAA course with PGS of BCC). So even if more than half of applicants receive an offer, there's still a high chance of not getting one, so my point (to have other unis in mind as very acceptable as well) is still valid.

People seem to be forgetting that the OP's DD wants to study French with linguistics. Looking at Oxford's admission figures I see this:

MFL
Interviewed 94%
Successful 44%
Intake 141

MFL + linguistics
Interviewed 95%
Successful 39%
Intake 38

All I can conclude from the figures is that Oxford take fewer people for MFL + linguistics than straight MFL so I'd also encourage the OP's DD to really investigate what linguistics involves and learn to talk passionately about it.

A lot of foreign language degrees are about the literature from the point of view not only of its language but its meaning just as with English literature. And also, English as a language, has a lot that needs studying as though it were foreign. I always remember the French teacher at school saying she knew more English grammar than we did. A book like ‘Fowler’s English Usage’ shows how much there is to understand.

Certainly some bi-lingual students do choose to study a foreign language they can already speak, and are accepted on to degree courses.

You are probably right. I looks as though it is like needing to get in twice.

I wonder though if they sometimes just offer MFL without linguistics and that will affect the stats. They do that a lot for joint honours. DD applied for Law with Law in Europe and if she hadn't been accepted for the language element she would have still be considered for straight Law.

Possibly, though I would imagine the two degrees are very different. My DD actually chose her course because of the linguistics bit, the Spanish was because she wanted to carry on with a language and wanted a definite year abroad. I don't think she would have considered a language on its own, a joint degree was perfect for her.

Employ a native speaker tutor who comes to your home (or your DD goes to her home) to do shared reading aloud of appropriate texts. I cannot emphasize enough how helpful this is: physical proximity to a native speaker reading aloud and then your DD reading back to her is a huge driver of pronunciation and absorption of correct syntactical structures and will of course help with vocabulary acquisition.

Twenty five odd years ago, but there were a few people on my German course at Bristol who were native speakers and/or bilingual, but I suppose they all did joint degrees (history, law, French, if I remember correctly), so maybe they viewed the German modules as the “easy win” ones! The History and Law with German courses included a year abroad, where we spent that year in the History or Law department at a German university, so there was that attraction too. I also did History with German (I’m not one of the native speakers myself!) and absolutely LOVED my year in the History department at the University of Hannover - I studied so many modules that I wouldn’t have had the chance to back in Bristol. It really broadened my horizons (and dare I say it, it was possibly much more valuable than those who spent the year teaching English in German schools etc).

(Waves at fellow Bristolian @curliegirlie )

The only native speaker I was aware of at Bristol (a loooongggg time ago haha) was a native German speaker who was older when that was perhaps less common. She did single hons German and got a first (which was also a lot less common - in the same year there were ZERO firsts for single hons French, a cohort of at least 50. Quite the scandal at the time).

Reminds me of our time as ex-pats in Italy. We put our young DCs into the local school, where English was taught as a foreign language. Surprise surprise, they always got 100% on vocab, grammar, pronunciation, etc.

My DD is 4th year at Oxford (French and another ML ab initio). She was state school educated - comprehensive school till GCSEs and then a selective state 6th form. She didn't have any immersion experiences - except one exchange when 13. I would suggest listening to podcasts, news channels and simple novels in French will improve her comprehension. You could also invest in say 5-10 one to one conversation lessons on line with a tutor; we did this in Covid. This made DD much more confident speaking in the interview. This would be cheaper than heading to France for several weeks in the summer.

My DD applied for a deferred entry place at Oxford and went to France for a year before Oxford as an au pair and took her C1 French exam before starting Oxford. Very cost effective as the lessons at Alliance Française are massively discounted for au pairs and of course accommodation is free. And it made her first year much easier. Oxford MFLis a good but fairly intense course with 16 hrs contact time plus essays and language assignments on top each week. It then meant she could spend all her Year abroad in the country of her ab initio language.

Do DM if I can help further.

What job is your daughter aiming at afterwards, I wonder? Foreign Office perhaps

Arte tv channel is great. Loads of interesting documentaries in excellent French. Watch French films with French subtitles too.

My daughter is in exactly the same situation so following with interest. Separately, it seems that the MLAT is no longer required at Oxford. They now test during interview and certain courses require one to submit written work in advance.

The people i met from Oxford doing mml were not that great at speaking it. In fact post 92 university students were a million times better.
They were probably great at grammar and the literature/analytical side of things though. I’d focus on this first and then the immersion side of things once you’ve got a place