Featured

My Journey

I have a disability called cerebral palsy which affects my ability to speak, however I have a real talent for foreign languages. I have been speaking French since the age of ten but in February 2020 my life changed when I hired a new personal assistant who had just come over from her homeland in Germany.

I have always thought it respectful to know some of a person’s mother tongue so I took the time to learn basic German and by the time she started I knew how to do basic greetings . My new employee was quite impressed by my efforts and within two weeks of her starting, she had taught me basic commands in German such as “put the brakes on” and by that time I had to choose my subjects for my final year of high school and despite many people’s skepticism due to my lack of experience, I chose nothing but languages- Higher French, National 5 English German and Spanish….

….and then lockdown happened the very next day …

At first I was thought to be “clinically vulnerable” so apart from my personal assistant visiting three times a week, I just stayed home and didn’t go out at all for the first three weeks which was unbelievably boring until my dad recommended Rosetta Stone for me to practice my German with. Gradually, with a combination of daily Rosetta Stone lessons and frequent conversations with my German personal assistant, my German skills steadily improved and by the time I returned to school in august I almost knew as much as my classmates, most of whom had been studying German since the age of 11! The first few months I was in the middle of the class but by Christmas I was correcting my teacher and by the spring I was reading German novels as if they were in in English and frequently scoring extremely high in tests so I decided to apply to the Goethe Institut.

unfortunately the Goethe Institut is shockingly ableist and informed me that because I use a communication device, I could not participate in their classes! Even although I was extremely infuriated by the blatant ableism of the institution that I had just fallen victim to, instead of emailing the Goethe Institut a long essay on disability rights and inclusion as was suggested by a number of people that I do, I decided that my time would be much better spent applying to study higher German at college so I went onto the Edinburgh College website and filled in the application form and within 24 hours I received a conditional offer saying that if I got a B in national 5 German I would be enrolled in the course in august.

after having left school with B’s in French and Spanish and a whopping A-band-1 in German, I had truly met my condition for college but now I had two long months to wait until my course started . I soon remembered that I still had my Rosetta Stone subscription and decided to learn a bit of Italian just because I come from an Italian family and felt that learning Italian was a sensible thing to do. A few days into my Italian lessons I just happened to mention to my dance mentor I was learning Italian and just like that he offered me the mega opportunity of choreographing a warmup for his other students in Milan. I was unbelievably excited about the opportunity and immediately decided to write as I learn, after just 3 short weeks I seriously surprised myself with my talent because I had just finished a piece of proper choreography in a language that I was unable to speak the previous month!

I have genuinely no idea why someone like me is so gifted in language but I am human proof that disability is not a barrier and no matter who you are you can do anything you want to do and this blog is going to reinforce that message

e e m mcgrath

Day School 3 – Language and Culture Day

Recently, I had my last-ever German Day! Although I am now gutted that I won’t have these events in my life anymore, despite some reservations about the new format, I really feel like this year was the best yet!

This year, all the language students at the OU had their language day together in Glasgow, rather than each language having a dedicated day. This worried me because I was sceptical about whether all the languages would be done justice and about how many people would be there. But despite my anxiety, I was really looking forward to seeing my two tutors, Lilian and Kim, and, above all, my beloved Sylvia, who has basically made it possible for someone like me to get this far at university! However, my excitement grew even more when I learned that Julia – my friend I made in Jena last year – was also going to be there, despite living outside of London!

Living in Fife and relying on public transport to get to the event, which began at 10:30 a.m., the only option was to stay in Glasgow. Because Julia also had to stay overnight, we decided to go out for dinner. Although we settled on a down-to-earth burger restaurant, we had a good evening catching up with each other and with Mark, another guy we knew from Jena who was also going to the event. The perfect lead-up to the following day! At the end of the dinner, i shared that I was going to stop at the shop to get flowers for Lilian. Also, being in Lilian’s group, Mark made a shallow joke about maybe getting something for her so he could get a better grade on his exam. At this I smiled, not because the joke was particularly funny, but because I knew the real reason – this year I have faced so many challenges and despite everything, Lilian has always been there for me,  whether it be in an academic context or just simply someone to talk to – and I couldn’t wait to see this amazing lady’s reaction to such a deserving gesture!

The next morning, I was sitting half asleep and still with the previous day’s pigtails in the restaurant of my hotel, whilst my mum got us breakfast, when I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder. “Guten Tag, liebe Äli!” chirped a cheerful voice. I jumped at least a foot in the air and turned around to see my favourite Austrian! Even with her signature massive smile and matching eyes, Lilian looked a bit different: she has always had short hair since I met her two years ago, but this year she must have been pulling it back when she was working, because all of a sudden it sat neatly in white waves on her shoulders! This new look added to the shock, and it took me a second to realise what was going on. Just when my still-sleeping brain had adjusted to the weird situation, my mum came back. After some rather embarrassing conversation about how jumpy I can be and how Lilian also shares this trait, Lilian went back to her table and left us to enjoy our meal.

My other tutor, Kim, has a great track record of emailing or appearing when my mouth is full, so it wasn’t surprising when the ellusive black curls appeared in front of me when I had a cup of smoothie to my lips! Although she doesn’t directly work with level 3 students, we have maintained good contact since I left her module last year and have a great relationship! So the fact that I didn’t get overexcited and spit white smoothie over her perfect black outfit is quite a big achievement 😆 ! It was honestly so nice to see this sunshine of a woman! Lately, I have felt like my own sunshine has been a bit dulled, so seeing her was like the first hint of dawn lighting up the night sky! Although hungry and uncaffeinated, she was in her usual high spirits! She was on her way to the breakfast buffet, so after we had gotten over the novelty of seeing each other, I let her get on with her mission !!

An hour later, with freshly braided hair and the flowers in my possession, I arrive on the Glasgow Całedonian University campus. Not entirely sure where to go, i see the Open University logo through the floor-to-ceiling window of one of the buildings, so I decided to try this one first. As I got a bit nearer, I saw a familiar sight that confirmed this was the right place… standing in profile in front of one of the windows, talking to a colleague, was the wonderful Sylvia! I hadn’t had a good week leading up to this point, so I was really looking forward to seeing her! I could see she was in the middle of something important, so I tried to be respectful, keep a low profile (difficult with hot-pink and green tights and a frog cardigan on!) and wait until she was ready before I said hello to the good doctor. After a short time, she came over and greeted me with a small hug. I had been needing a Sylvia-hug badly for at least 4 days before! Even though she only had time for a short hug and a brief chat, this carried on from Lilian and Kim’s breakfast-time interruptions in making me feel more human! I wished I could stay in her arms for longer, but I knew that she had important work to do, so  I let her go and carry on being the force of nature she is!

My mum had left me in the foyer with Julia once we had dumped the bags. Julia, being the social butterfly that she is, was introducing me to people that she had met at the equivalent of the event in Milton Keynes the weekend before (most of them recognised me from my passionate and enthusiastic contributions to German Club !), when I happened to look over my shoulder and clocked the last member of my OU family…CHLOE !!! Sometimes, when I need to get somewhere quickly, I push my feet off the ground to reverse really efficiently. On this particular occasion, however, i must have done it a little too enthusiastically because the first knowledge of me being there that Chloe got was me lying beside her with my chair at a 45-degree angle resting on its anti-tip (thank goodness I have that thing) and a rather shocked expression on my face! When I was back on 4 wheels, Chloe, I, and Julia, who had been notified of Chloe’s presence by this accidental gymnastics routine of mine, had a catch-up. Chloe, who was very chicly dressed in black and white today, would be studying French at this event because she was the buddy of French Club and she had been told that she had to study German in Milton Keynes and French here in Glasgow. Even though I hadn’t seen Chloe in a year, this separation didn’t bother me because in September, I’m going to start the law part of my degree while Chloe completes the fourth year of her pure language degree. This means that Chloe and I will be in entirely different schools at the uni. Given this, I took today as practice to make sure our friendship stays as strong while apart! We continued chatting until it was time to head into the lecture hall for the official welcome to the event!

In each friendship between a nonverbal communicator and someone who uses words comes a magical moment when you suddenly have a whole conversation with each other using your own methods of communication without any help from devices. Kim and I hit such a milestone in this lecture hall! I had lost track of Chloe and Julia when we all went through, so when Kim and Lilian discovered that I was sitting alone, they decided to sit with me, but before she joined Kim and me (Team Curly), Lilian went to say something to Sylvia, who was standing up at the front of the hall, ready to welcome everyone. During this time, when it was just Kim and I, I kept looking at the white plastic bag hanging on the back of my chair, which contained the flowers for Lilian.  After a short time, Kim said “Du guckst hinter dir” (you are looking behind you) and I nodded. When this was confirmed, she clocked the bag, looked inside, and asked, “für wen?” (for whom?). I pointed at Lilian, who was now on the way back to us! Having fully understood everything, Kim took the yellow roses out of the bag, waited for Lilian to return to her seat, then gave the gift to Lilian and explained that they were from me. Perfect communication between nonverbal and verbal! Yellow is Lilian’s ultimate favourite colour, so the first words out of her smiling mouth were “Äli! Du kennst mich so gut!” (Eilidh! You know me so well!).

With this remark, my mind went back to two years ago, when I first met this woman. The very first thing I noticed was how kind her face was, and I remember thinking, “I hope I get to work with this lady in the future”. On the same day, Kim and I had made such an instant, strong connection that it was decided I would work with her in the second year. But Lilian was always sort of in the background, and I even got to do my online school with her. When I moved to third year, the roles reversed and Lilian became my main tutor while Kim floated in the background. Despite having suffered greatly over the summer with grief and other issues so arriving in her group with a lot of extra challenges, Lilian has bent over backwards for me (very appropriate for a pilates instructor 😆), patiently explaining the Harvard reference system about twenty thousand times, meeting with me to discuss things like my dissertation and being open to doing things differently to make me feel comfortable.  I feel like I do know Lilian very well, and I’m so lucky I do!

I’m about to turn 23, and I want to be as independent as possible. Despite this, my mum insisted on accompanying me to my first class. Wanting a bit of space, we found a compromise: she could carry the bag while Kim pushed me. This allowed Mum and Lilian to talk. The conversation started off about the flowers and how thoughtful I was, but Kim and I got a little ahead of the other two and lost track of the conversation. Over the Christmas holidays, I had to email Lilian and tell her about an injury that my mum had suffered because I thought it would affect my studies. Lilian had recommended that once she had recovered, pilates might help her mobility. When the four of us had reunited in the lift, I realised that Lilian and Mum were talking about the injury and how Mum was thinking of trying pilates by watching videos. In her familiar “That is not a good idea!” voice, Lilian said that because Mum had been hurt, it was really important that she see a professional teacher. I found this really touching! Lilian only gets paid to teach me German, and she already goes above and beyond this job description for me, so she really didn’t have to do this for my mum!

When we got to the room where all the German students would be spending the first session of the day, I noticed a table with most of the Jena gang sitting at it, so I joined my friends. The first game was to communicate enough with our colleagues to form a line in alphabetical order by surname. The table asked me what my full name was and told the rest of the room, while Kim helped me negotiate the line, and thanks to this teamwork, a short while later i was in the correct place in a perfectly organised row of bodies! Next, everyone had to say their surnames to check if the line was correct. The line started “Anderson, Clark, …”. Being non-verbal meant that someone had to say my name on my behalf, and, having known me for three years, one would assume that Kim would have no problem with this! “McQuiire,” she said when it got to me in the line. I look at her as if she were crazy, while the Jena lot, as well as Lilian, all interject with “MCGRATH!”. Once the small matter of my name had been cleared up, the line continued and ended with the lovely Julia Wilson.

After the embarrassment of the first game, the classic German Day game of Speed Dating, which had once been the doorway to such a beautiful friendship with Chloe! Because of how I communicate, Kim and Lilian decided the best way for me to do it was to always work with people I knew from Jena so that I would feel instantly comfortable. First of all, I spoke with a laďy called Susanne. The first question on the little card we got was “beschreibe dich in 3 Wörter” (describe yourself in 3 words), and without too much hesitation, I answered, “farbiges bezöpftes Mädchen” (colourful pigtailed girl) because I felt this was the best summary of my identity! However, the answer to the second question led to an interesting discovery. Susanne had asked me, “Was machst du gern in deiner Freizeit?” (What do you like to do in your free time?) and I had said that, as well as dancing, I like to bake. Suzanne then started wondering how to say that I had a sweet tooth in German, so she asked Kim. Being Scottish, Kim needed to ask her native German-speaking colleagues because she wasn’t sure. Five minutes later, Lilian came over and told us that we would say “du bist eine Nieschkatze!”. Katze means cat, so everyone in earshot agreed that this was very cute!  It always surprises me when people say that German sounds angry or aggressive when, in reality, it’s full of adorable little terms like Nieschkatze! 💜

After a final game of Name That Famous German, the upper two levels of German students went to a room on a lower floor. The two tutors running this session were Kim and Lilian (my dream scenario), and Lilian helped me to a table right in front of where she and Kim would be teaching. The first game we did was one where we got cards and had to give our opinion on something by answering the question on the card.  For example, my card said, “Was ist total überbewertet?” (What is totally overrated?) and it took me a split second for me to decide that my answer was football! For this game, I was partnered with a woman who was significantly less confident in German than I am, so it was a bit challenging. I had to be extremely patient, but we persevered to get our points across and be understood. Sometimes you just have to listen to people more carefully than others in order to communicate effectively!

I am a very creative and artistic person, but when I was in high school, I was always discouraged from drawing because of my disability and told things like I physically couldn’t do drawing tasks! Because of this, I found the next game quite exciting! We were to pair up, and one person had to describe a photo while the other tried to draw it. When Kim asked me what I wanted to do, I said I would describe because I had learned that this was the correct answer! However, a few weeks earlier, I had drawn a portrait of Lilian and me, and subsequently discussed how much drawing helps us both on bad days. Therefore, upon overhearing this exchange, she jumped in and said that she knows how much I love to draw, so I should be the artist, and to make sure I had the opportunity to do this, she would be my partner! “What the actual?!” I thought. Lilian was the first teacher since I was in primary school (maybe even ever) who had actually recognised this hobby, didn’t put me in a box, and encouraged me to draw in class! It took me a few seconds to work out that she was serious, and even as I opened the note-taking app that I use for all my artwork, I felt like I was doing something that I wasn’t supposed to!

One of my nerdiest interests is how women dressed in olden times. I don’t tend to share this with many people. Still, perhaps Lilian had figured it out from the picture of me wearing my Dirndl (traditional Bavarian dress) that I had shown her at the start of the year, because after looking through the photos for the perfect thing for me, she chose a picture of a woman from the eighteenth century with some flowers. MY VIBE EXACTLY!! Not wanting to be too slow and for Lilian to change her mind and suddenly sound like my high school teachers, I sketched everything that Lilian described as fast as I possibly could so compared to the careful drawing of her and me standing in dresses of our favourite colours and styles coupled with patterned tights, surrounded by hearts and flowers, which I had spent a week on, this drawing looked very rough and rushed and a stark contrast! Probably, if I had been more confident that I was allowed to draw, I would have taken a little more time, and it wouldn’t have been so sketchy and a bit more detailed. But even the fact that I got the opportunity to do this felt indescribably empowering!

 When I was younger, going to events and activities such as Guides, it was always assumed that someone else would help me, which generally left me alone in a lot of rooms! Because of this history, I (and, to be honest, my mum too!) was very surprised by Lilian’s thoughtful actions when it came to lunchtime! The class had finished, and I had started to worry about how I would get downstairs to Mum, who had my lunch. Somehow this must have been written on my face because, without me saying anything, Lilian suddenly said: “Gib mir nur zwei Minuten, liebe Äli, und ich fahre dich zu deiner Mama” (just give me two minutes, darling Eilidh, and I will take you to your mum). Sure enough, a short time later, my stuff was packed up in my bag, and we were on the way down the stairs!

After lunch with mum and Chloe, who felt the need to retell the story of my little tripping session that morning 😀, I went to a workshop Lilian was leading on learning German through music. Being part of a band, the granddaughter of a jazz musician and adoring German, I decided that this was the perfect class for me! Although only two other students were in the class, we had a fascinating time discussing each other’s favourite songs from German-speaking countries, the different ways in which music can help you learn a language and concluding with a few renditions of Nena’s 99 Luftballons, to which, as well as singing, I added a bit of a head and shoulder dance!

The workshop on in the same room after Lilian’s was about Swiss German led by the Swiss tutor who, since I had met her this time last year, I thought was called Bärbel but was actually called Sabrina (you know, because those names are soooooooo similar 🤣).  Throughout my 6 years studying German, I have mainly focused on Germany (specifically the east since meeting Sylvia, Kim and Julia) and have read next to nothing on Switzerland so I wasn’t particularly interested in it but Lilian was staying for it and I figured that it was best for us to stay together so that we could go to the next class without any problems! Oh my goodness, what a laugh i would have missed if I were a little less loyal! 🤣

One of the many things that I love about Lilian is how expressive her face is – if she is happy, she grins with both her mouth and eyes, if she finds something cute, her eyes tell you so, and, as I was about to learn, when she finds something funny, she can not hide that either!

The best way I can describe the difference between standard German and Swiss German is this. If standard German were the King’s English, Swiss German would be Pictish (the dialect spoken in the old mining communities in the north-east of England). In other words, there are a lot of different words and speakers of standard German don’t automatically understand it. Lilian is from Vienna, which, in this metaphor, would be Edinburgh (speaks with a bit of an accent but is generally understood everywhere). Sabrina started teaching us some of her words, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see Lilian sitting at the adjacent table, smiling and giggling to herself! The weird new vocabulary did make me laugh, but Lilan’s reactions significantly added to the comedy! Sometimes I didn’t know exactly who i was laughing at!

After the fun of Swiss German, it was time to go back to the room where we were in before lunch for another session with Lilian and Kim. We warmed up with a kind of category game where we had to name something of a specific category, for example, the hardest German word or the nicest place in the German-speaking world. One of the categories was the funniest person in the German-speaking world, and I had recently seen a reel on Instagram from this guy explaining how the Bavarian word “iridiridi” translates to the full standard German sentence “störe ich dich in deiner Konzentration?” (Am I disturbing you in your concentration?) I found his delivery INCREDIBLE, so I wanted to say he was the funniest person… the only problem was that at the time, I was too busy laughing at the reel to register his name. Unfortunately for my dignity, this meant that I now had to just sit and describe this person to a room full of people, including Kim! Luckily for me, there only seems to be one “dicker bayerischer Typ, der auf bayerischem Dialekt spricht” (fat Bavarian guy, who speaks in Bavarian dialect)! Lilian did tell me his actual name after this little game of charades, but I have since forgotten again!

 The last game of the day was a little bit of a role-play activity. A guy was nominated to be an East German man who was considering escaping to the West. The rest of us were split into two groups: my group was West Germany, and the other was the GDR. It was our job to convince the man why it was better to live on our side of the wall. Part of me thought that this was good preparation for law school because arguing your case against the other side in front of someone who is going to make a decision based on your arguments is basically a big part of a lawyer’s job. However, the McGrath in me just wanted to beat the other team! And that we did! After hearing all our arguments, our classmate decided that he favoured democracy and escaped to the West! 🥳

The lovely Kim and I have a bit of a German Day tradition when we find a corner and have a one-on-one conversation. Although I always enjoy this time with this amazing and kind lady, this year’s session felt especially important. In two weeks, I have a speaking exam, which is a whole 35% of my grade, and (yes, even strong linguists like me feel like this sometimes💜) I have been really nervous about it because I haven’t had a live speaking exam in 3 years, this is the first one without any kind of script and via video call. It weighs so much that if I screw up, my mark for the whole module will be affected! Because of this, I felt like, as well as a fun catch-up with someone equally as obsessed with everything German as I am, it was also good preparation for the exam! One of the first things that Kim asked me was what my favourite part of my OU German study was. This was a very difficult question because the last three years have been full of brilliant moments. However, this day two years ago was a very pivotal moment in my OU life. When I arrived at my first German Day in Edinburgh, I was very much a lone wolf- I had no uni friends, my tutor wasn’t able to support my needs and I was about to start studying French… however, a mere 8 hours later I had a best friend, a tutor for the next year and a spare one, and a great mentor! The truth is, without these four women, my OU (and perhaps even external) life would have turned out very different! This is why (although it’s a bit of a cliche) I had to pick this day as the highlight of my time here: if I wasn’t part of this quintet of strong women, all the subsequent brilliant moments would never have happened and I probably would be a totally different person!

This little German Day tradition is sort of cursed. Something ridiculous and funny always happens during this conversation, which causes a lot of hilarity at my expense!  In my first year, I reversed into a vending machine, and last year I lost the photo I was supposed to be taking and swore (still speaking German) in front of Kim for the first time. So it shouldn’t have surprised us when Kim asked me a question, and I answered “aua! Mein Stuhl ist im Schuh!” (Ow! My chair is in my shoe!). Not only is this a ridiculous sentence, but it was totally unrelated to Kim’s question, so for a few seconds, Kim just looked at me as if she was trying to work out what mistake I had made. The classic Eilidh and Kim laughter started once she had noticed that I was serious and my Mary Jane was around the pillar of my footplate! “She’s going to be so bored next year,” I thought as Kim worked to divorce foot and chair. Although she and Lilian have given me strict instructions to write from law school and they are going to be, according to Lilian, “für immer im Hintergrund” (forever in the background), never again would Kim and I have a chaotic moment like this, never again would I overhear her sarcastic remarks and struggle to contain my laughter, never again would I sit between her and Lilian and feel like a whole department treasures me!

With my shoe eventually chair-free, it was time to go back to the main room to join the rest of the German team before all of us went back to the lecture hall to be officially congratulated and dismissed. I had noticed that my knuckle was bleeding (still not sure what I punched oe when I punched it😆), so Kim had decided that it was best to take me through to the room first, take care of the wound and then come back and get my iPad. Blood sufficiently “abgetrocken” (dried up), Kim went back to the other room to get my stuff. During this time I looked around the room and saw the adorably resourceful way Lilian was using Sabrina’s water bottle to keep her roses alive, the way the roses actually went with the walls, people laughing about the literalness of the German language and the fact that a bunch of people with a common interest were in a room together despite being at a distance learning university. “Also… Was soll ich jetzt im März tun?” (So….now what am I supposed to do in March?) I thought. Days like these can’t be recreated on your own, and I usually look forward to this day all year. I snapped out of my daydream just in time to be part of a group photo which Lilian was now making her way further and further up the room trying to take as a selfie 🤣.

After all of us were thanked for our hard work in the lecture hall and had posed in the foyer for one last photo with absolutely everyone, I was trying to hunt my way through the sea of linguists for Sylvia. I had not seen her all day, and I wanted to hug her goodbye. Just as we set eyes on each other, I was also found by Lilian and Kim. The usual chat about how amazing I am when the four of us are together started, but suddenly, for the second time today, Lilian caught me off guard! Unlike most of my family, I’m a hugger! Hugging is my love language, and once I hug you, you are special to me. I have been hugging Sylvia since January, but although I have had a lot of love for Kim and Lilian for quite some time, I have been professional and controlling the urge to hug them. Before I knew what was happening, Lilian had my arms around me, my head rested on her abdomen, and the tassels of her yellow scarf were tickling my nose!

Although I was a little surprised, it felt nice. This was probably the last time I would ever see this force of a woman in person. Over the past two years, she has seen the highs, but she has also been there for the lows and comforted me. So if we’d departed without a hug, it wouldn’t have felt right! When Lilian had finished with this hug-ambush, Kim decided that it was now her turn! This time I was ready! As we put our arms around each other, I thought about how weird it was that two people with similar personalities and even looks could find each other through the thing they both love most! As she rushed off to catch her train back to the Highlands, I thought how weird it was going to be not being able to see each other like this ever again. Since January, we had been counting down the days until we would see each other again, and now that was it! I am absolutely going to stay in touch with the pair of them, but I feel like a chapter has ended!

After my two tutors had said goodbye, I put my arms around Sylvia’s legs (she is too tall to hug properly) and just stayed there, ignoring my mum’s reminders about the imminent train, for a while! When I eventually let go, she said in her soothing German accent, “Don’t let this be the final meeting, I’ll come in the summer with Chloe. I’ll bring Alfie!” With this little goodbye speech, a lump formed in my throat, and as I made my way to the train station, my lip started to wobble! I didn’t want it to be the final meeting either! Sylvia started out as a good mentor, and when I was working as a buddy, she was a good boss, but over the last year, she has become a very good friend, and although I was ok with just writing to Kim and Lilian, I knew that I needed to keep the other two close. 💜

In conclusion, German Day this year was essentially 24 hours of friendship, comedy and fun! I would definitely recommend that any OU language student go to these events if they have the chance, because I have thrived thanks to them, and honestly, I’m going to really miss them in the future when I’m studying Law.

Eilidh Elizabeth Molly McGrath 💜

Dedicated to Kim Richmond, Lilian Gergley, Sylvia Warnecke, Julia Wilson and Chloe Nightingale

The Death of Modern Languages

What can be done to save Modern Language education in our schools and universities?

Eilidh Elizabeth Molly McGrath

My language education era is about to end – I have one last German exam to do, and then I’m done! Although I am proud of what I have achieved and I’m excited about starting my new adventure through law school, I’m also deeply concerned because the number of British foreign language students is decreasing extremely rapidly – so much so that instead of a German Day, a French Day, a Spanish Day and a Chinese Day, at the end of this month my uni is having a combined Language and Culture Day because all four departments are so small that it is not worth having separate days! This article will explore this crisis, present the benefits of learning a modern language, and offer suggestions for improving British foreign language learning for future generations.

The Modern Language Education Crisis Under the Microscope

Since 2008, the number of French and German teachers in Scottish schools has fallen by over a fifth! We have lost 44.2% of our French teachers, leaving a total of 597 still practising, but the most alarming statistic is the  63.3% drop in German teachers, taking the total down to a shocking 66 across the whole of Scotland (PA Media, 2025). Additionally, only 7 universities in Scotland (excluding The Open University) offer Modern Language courses, with only 3 of them offering German as a choice (What Uni, n, d), which means that right from the age of 12, hopeful language students are disadvantaged in comparison to young people with a different area of interest, such as art or science. But this is a chicken-and-egg question – are modern languages not being taught because they are not popular or are they not popular because there is simply not enough opportunity to learn them?

According to a study by the British Council in 2023, 48% of pupils enjoyed learning another language however more than a quarter of survey respondents were not planning to take a modern language past GCSE level. Additionally, a startling near 90% thought that learning a foreign language would not be useful for their posț-school careers with some even saying that it would not be useful at all (Standley, 2023). Despite this last year 99% of primary schools offered a foreign language as part of the curriculum. Although this is a very promising start, the problem lies with the older age group. If a secondary school does not receive enough pupils for a foreign language class one year then it usually axes the class the following year (British Council, 2025). This essentially puts the responsibility of the future of modern language education into the hands of 14-18-year-olds! In a recent chat with my tutor Lilian, I found out that the brain does not actually stop developing until the mid-30s (Gergley, 2026) so based on this fact it seems ludicrous to base the presentation of modern language classes, which can have so many benefits to the brain, on the reactions of individuals whose brains are 17-20 years off being fully developed!

 That’s the situation for young people up to the age of 18, but what does the situation look like for people my age and above who are in higher education?

Reports show that enrollment for undergraduate modern foreign language degrees is at a 25-year low. Since 2014  17 British universities have lost their Modern Language degree courses but that is just the tip of the iceberg! The Modern Language crisis has brought total closure to 28 and thus leaving hopeful future linguists with a choice of just 10 universities to study in (HEPI, 2025). But how many of these endangered species of academic are there left in the uk? Since 2012 the number of full-time French students at UK universities has decreased from  9,700 to 3,700! Similarly the number of full-time German students has fallen from 3,900 to just 1,400 in the same period (Standley, 2025)! But why does no-one want to learn foreign language anymore?

There are ten main answers to this question. Firstly, Modern Language classes  have a large number of different components such as a tsunami of new vocabulary, brand new grammatical concepts as well as listening and speaking elements, all of which can be overwhelming to some students and cause Modern Languages to be perceived as “difficult subjects”. Secondly Modern Languages tend to have stricter marking schemes than other subjects which often leads to discouraging lower marks than in other subjects and contributes to the perceived difficulty of the field. Another reason why the popularity of Modern Languages is dwindling is that because English is generally regarded as the lingua franca of the world, many students fail to see the immediate relevance of learning a foreign language because STEM subjects and vocational courses have more obvious career pathways. The patchy and inconsistent provision of Modern Language in state schools are results of reduced presence of German, French and Spanish on timetables, cuts in teaching time and also directly impact on attainment and motivation in these subjects and therefore the popularity. Moreover, sometimes, particularly in boys, language learning can be seen as uncool and students can move away from the field because none of their peers is doing it. Also traditional Modern Language classes in the UK have faced criticism for focusing too much on grammar and verb tables instead of meaningful communication which can cause students to disengage, specifically learners with lower attainment. There is also an association between Modern Foreign Language classes and private school education and higher income, which can cause learners from lower class to think that language learning is not for people like them. Also, if a child grows up in a wholly monolingual household, they can lack a good linguistic role model and feel culturally disconnected and unmotivated when it comes to language learning. Finally, there is a lack of continuity between primary and secondary schools with modern language provision which can mean that children can repeat a lot of learning when they transition to high school (Conti, 2025).

In summary, Modern Foreign Language education in this country is in crisis triggered by a shortage of staff, insufficient provision and declining popularity. It therefore seems appropriate for take a closer look at how language learning can enrich our lives.

 Benefits of learning MFL

For me, language learning has changed my life! Now that I am fluent in German I have twice as many books, movies and podcasts to enjoy and twice as many words in my vocabulary.  However during my language learning journey, I have met so many lovely people and now, for the first time in my life, i have a stable support network and at least two life-long friends who really feel like family! My journey has taken me to places in the world that I would have never seen otherwise…also when I am trying to read instruction manuals, I no longer have to spend ages finding the English section! Studies have shown that language learning has a lot of benefits to the life of the learner, which I will explain in this section of the article!

 According to a study for Cambridge University, learning a new language changes the physical structure of the brain! Bilingual brains have been proven to have more neurons than the brain of a person who speaks one language causing the grey matter to be denser. As well as neurons, bilingual adults have more nerves connecting the different lobes of the brain which makes the brain more powerful! The same physical changes have been seen in the brains of people who have learned a foreign language later in life. This alternative brain structure has been proven to help protect older people from neurodegenerative conditions like Dementia. So essentially learning a foreign language is like a HIIT workout for your brain (Spence, 2022).

As well as the neurological advantages, language learning can also enhance your social and employability skills. Firstly communicating with someone in their first language shows respect and can lead to a deeper connection (I have seen this happen many times!) resulting in stronger friendships. Secondly thinking about a problem in an additional language allows you to think more objectively and with more emotional distance, resulting in better decision-making. Also language learning is one of the best ways to find out about other cultures and studies have shown that children who learn an additional language develop an affinity for the culture that is associated with the language (I’m perhaps the textbook example of this 😀), which ultimately leads to a higher level of cultural tolerance. When you go to a different country and know the language, you acquire a higher level of experience of the place compared to the average tourist and have more opportunities to immerse yourself in the food, art and culture and find secret nooks and crannies! Lastly an occupational hazard of learning a language is making a lot of mistakes in front of your peers, teachers and sometimes even native speakers! Over time, these public mistakes make you a more confident person!  Language learning also teaches us to compare other cultures with our own in doing so you realise how diverse and colourful the world is and what similarities and differences lie between your own culture and other cultures.  Finally, there is nothing quite like experiencing art in its original language (the English translation of Erich Fried’s poem “Was Es Ist” definitely doesn’t have the same beautiful rhythm as the original German!) and learning another language gives you more opportunities to do so! On the business and employability side of the story, multilingualism lies in the top 8 most attractive traits that employers look for. This is the same for every job title which makes polyglots naturally more employable than single-language speakers from the beginning! In the US 9 in 10 employers rely on multilingual employees so even with the advancement of AI, multilingualism is now more of an essential employability skill, rather than a nice quirk to have (ACTFL, 2026).

MFL have all these wonderful benefits, so how do we make sure that future generations get better access to and stay engaged with MFL education?

Recommendations for the future of MFL education in the UK

Even though I started this blog as very much a child who was fresh out of school,  I like to hope that my little purple articles contribute to the advocacy of the inclusive teaching and learning of Modern Language in some small way. Therefore in this final section i will make suggestions on what can now be done to rescue British Modern language education from the edge of extinction! I am just a university student so I am not a qualified expert on education, however I am a young woman in the British education  system who wants to make sure that her children and grandchildren also get to experience the joy of learning a foreign language!

Linguists visiting schools

People who have studied MFL at university should be invited to schools to give a talk on studying MFL and the Impact on their career it’s had. This will enable children to see how MFL still has much relevance in today’s AI-dominant, largely English-speaking world and potentially inspire some to pursue MFL further.

New campaign for MFL degrees

Universities and the government should launch a campaign promoting the study of MFL courses in further education. I have seen a similar campaign for teacher training so this shouldn’t be too difficult. As well as promoting pure MFL courses, the campaign should also promote mixed degrees (German and Law, French and business, Spanish and computing, etc) so that prospective students who already have a specific plan to study a non-MFL subject such as law can be persuaded to add a MFL into their studies.  

Make MFL compulsory

Currently in Scotland, maths and English are compulsory until the  age of 16 because they are considered “essential subjects”, I believe that being able to speak an additional language is also an essential skill because they open up more of the world to you. Therefore I propose that MFL should be added to this group. With this model, children would start learning either French, German or Spanish five times in a school week from the beginning of P1 to the end of P7, when they transition to high school, the child would be asked whether they would like to continue with their original language or change to another (for example, if Olivia and Harry attend a primary school that teaches French, Olivia may decide to continue with French in high school while Harry decides that German looks interesting so parks his French and decides to start beginners’ German in first year). They would continue with the selected language until the end of fourth year and then decide whether they wish to continue with it in fifth and six year (Olivia may have fallen in love with French so decide to continue with it in her senior phase, while Harry has a talent for science so decides to stop German and focus on maths, biology and physics so that he can study a scientific course at university). This model would mean that every child in the UK would leave school with all least a B1 (intermediate) proficiency in a MFL.

Incentives for new MFL teachers

 MFL teachers should receive a specific bursary when they start their training and when they start practising, they should continue to receive a certain benefit on top of their salary. The reasoning behind this is that if a school has a German teacher, that single person is responsible for the German education of the whole school (not all schools have German teachers, so in extreme cases, they can be responsible for the whole region!) and this causes a larger workload compared to a geography or chemistry teacher who has colleagues! Not only would the benefit reimburse them for the extra work they have to do, but it would also potentially encourage people to become MFL teachers and begin to tackle the shortage.

Region-specific foreign language options

In different parts of the UK live different immigrant communities. Therefore, instead of just offering either French, Spanish or German across the whole UK, options should be tailored to the region. In Fife is a large number of Polish people so schools in Fife would offer French, Spanish, German and Polish while schools in Manchester, A place with a high Jewish population, would offer French, Spanish, Yiddish and Hebrew and London schools would offer French, Spanish, German, Arabic, Afrikaans and Hindi. This more tailored approach may hełp students recognise the relevance of learning a language because they may have friends and family members who are native speakers of one of the provided languages or even have one as a first language themselves! Not only would this promote the relevance of MFL education but it would also celebrate the diversity of British schools and the surrounding communities and make the next generation of Brits less xenophobic, racisti and “bigotted”.

If even just some of these measures were to be put in place, I believe that MFL education would recover from its current crisis state within a decade and enrich the lives of future generations.

In conclusion MFL education in the UK is in a dire situation and if nothing is done about it then the country  is at risk of becoming a completely monolingual land! English is indeed the lingua franca of the world but I now wonder if that is because English-speaking countries have such great economies or simply because English-speaking people are so dreadful at learning foreign languages! As I turn my attention to legal studies, I fear that the world of MFL is about to lose one of its last enthusiastic students and everything could easily collapse. However on the flip side, legal knowledge may help me to advocate more effectively for MFL and create more change!

Eilidh Elizabeth Molly McGrath

Sources

ACTFL (2026) ‘The Benefits of Learning Languages’, ACTFL.Available online at: https://www.actfl.org/advocacy-and-public-education/the-benefits-of-learning-languages (Accessed on: 18 March 2026)

British Council (2025) ‘Language Trends Scotland: Research into the teaching and learning of modern languages’, British Council. Available online at: https://scotland.britishcouncil.org/language-trends-scotland (Accessed on: 15 March 2026)

Conti, G. (2025) ‘Why Do So Many UK Students Drop Modern Foreign Languages?’, THE LANGUAGE GYM, 21 May. Available online at: https://gianfrancoconti.com/2025/05/21/why-do-so-many-uk-students-drop-modern-foreign-languages/ (Accessed on: 17 March 2026)

Gergely, L. (2026) Email to Eilidh Elizabeth Molly McGrath, 9 March.

HEPI (2025) ‘New report shows a catastrophic decline in formal language learning’, Higher Education Policy Institute, 31 July. Available online at: https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/07/31/new-report-shows-decline-in-formal-language-learning/ (Accessed on: 15 March 2026)

PA Media (2025) ‘Number of modern language teachers down by more than a fifth, figures suggest’, STV News, 20 April. Available online at: https://news.stv.tv/scotland/number-of-mGodern-languages-teachers-down-by-more-than-a-fifth-figures-suggest (Accessed on: 14 March 2026)

Spence, C. (2022) ‘How learning a new language changes your brain’, CAMBRIDGE, 29 April. Available online at: https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2022/04/29/learning-language-changes-your-brain/ (Accessed on: 18 March 2026)

Standley, N. (2023) ‘Pupils say languages not key to careers – Report’, BBC News,  4 December. Available online at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c889nyxmkpmo (Accessed on: 14 March 2026)

Standley, N. (2025) ‘University students facing course ‘cold spots’ as enrollments fall’, BBC News, 16 December. Available online at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnv26103d1go (Accessed on: 15 March 2026)

What Uni (n, d) ‘Modern Languages degrees’, What Uni?. Available online at: https://www.whatuni.com/degree-courses/search?subject=modern-languages (Accessed on: 14  Màrch 2026)

Zweittausendfünfundzwanzig

(2025)

2025 was my last full year of formal language studies! This might surprise you because I went to the Open University to study German and Spanish in order to become a modern language teacher… well, that dream wasn’t going to work because of the lack of opportunities for German teachers in Scotland so I have decided to trade my sombrero for a judicial wig and study law next year instead! (more on that later).  My journey as a linguist this year has been quite interesting despite many challenges in my personal life. I have worked with totally awesome fellow linguists, advocated for the education of people with additional support needs and really upped my German study game! As per The Non Verbal Linguist Hogmanay tradition, I’m going to summarise my linguistic adventures of this year.

 The year started off with the best point and the lowest point in the same day and looking back, I am very pleased that they happened in the same day because the best bit made the worst part survivable. I was invited to share my story as an OU student who has additional support needs with a selection of staff from the departments of Languages, Education and Health in my uni. This part of the day was really fun because I got to advocate for people like me while sitting next to my favourite OU person Sylvia. Unfortunately I also said my farewells to another non-verbal powerhouse on the same day 🌻 which totally broke my heart but despite the grief, I really enjoyed the roles being reversed and me teaching the lecturers for a change…and of course sitting next to the nicest German ever for 2 hours added to the enjoyment. For some years now I have been doing something similar in the world of dance so perhaps teaching inclusive teaching could be something that I do as my main job in the future.

In March I went to my penultimate OU Language and Culture Day (although at the time I just thought it was my penultimate OU German Language and Culture Day). Last year I had basically met all of my OU people at the event so it was like a big happy reunion! Moreover, I had so much more confidence compared to last year so I was able to really express my passion for the German language without fear of being seen as “too enthusiastic”, ìn fact Chloe and I sat in our matching EAT SLEEP DEUTSCH REPEAT tops and were adored and admired by everyone! I have reached the conclusion that such events are my favourite time of the whole uni year because not only do you get to speak your favourite language all day but you also get to hang out with totally awesome people like Chloe, Kim, Sylvia and Lilian!

After Language and Culture Day I had a lot of personal stuff going on and I was struggling to process everything so I decided to read the PhD work of my then tutor Kim to take my mind off everything. Kim’s first reaction when I told her what I was going to do was to tell me to go ahead but that her work wasn’t particularly interesting…I have known Kim for almost 3 years and this was the first instance since meeting her where she was totally wrong! Although the work was based around the rather dark theme of East German prisons, it was fascinating. Reading this made me think about writing my own phd someday because since I met her, Kim has really reminded me of myself (another Scottish curly-haired sarcastic German superfan) so if she can do it ‚ why can’t I put in the same effort and work and achieve the same thing?!

With this new dream in mind, I set off to Germany for the second time! First of all, I spent a few days in Berlin taking in the sights and the culture. My Sylvia used to live in this beautiful city so I felt really connected to her while I was there! Despite the cold, wet weather, I really enjoyed getting to know more about the history and culture of Germany through my extensive museum and monument visits and also discovering my passion for Wiener Schnitzel! After spending 3 days in the beautiful capital city, I then returned south to my “German home town” of Jena to take part in the same course that I took part in last year… and, as it happened, to eat MORE Schnitzel!! Even though the trip was awesome last year, I joined last minute so it wasn’t really geared up for wheelchair users. This year however, I signed up when applications opened which meant that the week was designed with wheelchair users in mind so I could participate fully in the activities. I enjoyed the whole thing but one day stood out for me. I don’t know if Germany is just a really small world or if some kind of fate is making me retrace her footsteps but for the field trip this year was to a town called Halle where, rather unbelievably, Sylvia studied! The thing is – I had known about her connection with Berlin pretty much since I met her but I only found out about her connection with Halle when I told her about the field trip so it was a huge coincidence that not only allowed me to walk where she had walked but even find out about another chapter in my treasured friend’s life!

One Friday night in late August I had a bit of an opithany! I had been feeling sad and uncomfortable about starting the Spanish part of my degree pretty much since Language and Culture Day because I love German so much and didn’t think Spanish would give me the same feeling. As I stood at the bus stop on my way back from swimming, I overheard a couple speaking Spanish and – as Angelica Schyler says in the musical Hamilton – realised 3 fundamental truths at the exact same time! #1 as I have gotten older, my extensive interest in foreign languages has been streamlined into an intensive interest in German. #2 if I were to become a traditional modern language teacher, my life would be very frustrating because I would have to teach Spanish forever as German lessons are dying out of the Scottish school system! Last and by no means least, #3 if I’m going to write a Ph.D. I will be more “valuable” anyway with or without a formal teaching license, so my studies don’t have to be restricted to just languages. At first, I was dithering between History and Law while leaning slightly towards Law (I had seen the German and Law course 3 years ago when I first joined the OU family and was VERY tempted!) but it was overhearing my aunt stressing over my grandma’s will that made me realise that the family could benefit from someone who has a little legal knowledge and ultimately pushed me over the edge and convinced me to change my degree to German and Law! If I have learned anything from the death of my friend, it is that life is short so although being a lawyer would be very cool, I am focusing on the journey instead of the destination and just going to enjoy my studies (especially telling everyone that I am a law student😀) and just see where they take me! Sometimes a lack of a plan is the best plan!

On August 26th my grandma unfortunately passed away. Ella as she was known was the only other linguist in the family and she shared my particular interest in the German language. The funeral was held on the day before the new uni year started. Although this was the first funeral that I had been to since the wee girl in January and was therefore quite triggering, I learned a couple of new things about my grandma! The first thing I found out was that she did a German degree at Edinburgh University… I found this a bit funny because as my long-term readers may know, I actually applied to do German at Edinburgh three years ago before I came to OU instead! In the last few years of her life, Ella’s health was very poor so we never got to discuss this and therefore I had absolutely no idea that I almost followed in her exact footsteps! The other very cool thing that I found out was that she used to work as something called a dramatourg. The job description of a dramatourg, as I understand it, is very cool – when a play goes to a country with a different language from the one that the one which the original play was written in, it is the job of a dramatourg to translate the script! Once again I wish I had known about this when Ella was actually alive because this sounds like one of the most interesting jobs ever!

 Even though the events of the previous 9 months had left me truly worse for wear, I started my last year of German on September 5. It had been previously arranged that I would be working with Lilian (who I still maintain is the smiliest person ever) but what I hadn’t planned for was basically meeting another one of my kind! People say that I have a unique passion for language, that I describe things really poetically, that my mind works in a different way to everyone else and I get very upset if I witness someone make a mistake in German! I am very proud of these quirks but it turns out that I’m not the only one in Lillian’s group who fìts this description!

This year I joined my uni’s “German Club” to increase my exposure to the German language and culture and to mix a bit more with the OU community. Along with Chloe and a few people who I knew from my studies in Jena, there was one member who stood out to me. Right from the beginning, I could tell that Pascal was special! He regularly contributed such interesting things to the group and sparked many intelligent and often amusing discussions! We interacted a lot in this club in the month leading up to the start of term but I was too shy to ask him what module he was taking this year. It was therefore such a lovely surprise when the website for my module opened and his unique way of speaking appeared on the main module forum and even better when we got allocated our tutors and that brilliant mind of his popped up in my group! 

At the start of the year, we interacted a lot on the tutor group forum but then we both became too mentally exhausted to post. I started to miss my new friend, when, just as if he had read my mind, he found my academic email address and sent me a message asking if I was still on the module. Even though he started his note by apologising for intruding, I was  absolutely delighted to hear from him! Since then we have had quite the pen friendship and -we have both noticed this- it often feels like we are writing to ourselves because not only have we got a very similar writing style but we have also gone through similar things this year which have affected us similarly! I can’t believe that both of us have landed in the same tutor group!

Compared to my previous modules, I have taken a much more in-depth approach to my current module. Not only do I do almost all of the exercises but I also take notes! While I have been working on this module I have also mastered skills that I have never been able to master in English such as paraphrasing and language analysis and I often catch myself thinking in fluentGerman! My notebook is definitely the thickest it has been at this point in the year compared to both my previous years at OU. Studying has been like a haven or a respite for me this year so even though it is only halfway through the academic year, I’m already 80% through the module!

Although my language study time is mostly taken up by German, I have also started learning Russian on Duolingo! I have no concrete reason for this other than wanting to experiment to see if I can learn a language with a different alphabet (people have experimented with worse things at uni 😀). Even though the Russian lessons are few and far between, when I do practice, I regularly achieve perfect scores and I’m getting to grips with reading the new alphabet!

So what are my linguistic hopes for 2026? Well, the first thing that I would like to do is get my third OU distinction for my final German module and leave the language department on a high. It would also be cool to go back to Germany again at some point over the years and also perhaps delve deeper into the Russian language. However, I have a few other things that are going to take precedence next year so my focus is going to be less on the linguistic side of things and more on the persoal side.

In conclusion, 2025 has been a year of big decisions. I have realised that a more streamlined path is better than trying to copy Isobel exactly! I have realised more of what I want from my academic and professional life and I have done that with a bunch of lovely, supportive people surrounding  me. It is no secret that I have had better years (understatement of the century) but despite that, I feel much more relaxed about my linguistic journey, whatever shape it’s going to take… it is the journey not the destination!

dedicated to Ella Wildrige

Jena 2- My German Adventure

I have just spent 2 weeks in my Geistheimatsland (spiritual home country) of Germany! I went mainly to fulfil my strong wish of studying at Friedrich Schiller University at their summer school for the second time, but I went via Berlin for a few days beforehand. Despite some drama with the infamous Deutsche Bahn, it was terrific, being immersed in German for that long, and I even acquired a new uni friend!

Although the Scots seemingly stole the warm German weather and replaced it with the cold, wet Scottish weather, Berlin was a big adventure! Firstly, we were staying at a youth hostel, which I had never done before. The first night was a bit cramped because our accessible room wasn’t available, but it was fine for what we needed once we got the correct room! Unfortunately, the same can not be said for Google Maps! For example, I wanted to go to the Brandenburg Gate on our first full day, but Google Maps led us away from it instead of to the thing!!!

 In between getting incredibly lost, I learned so much about the country’s history! We went to a selection of museums, including a rather jarring exhibition called ROADS NOT TAKEN, which detailed what could have happened if different decisions had been made in German history (thank goodness other choices were made).

On our second last night in Berlin, we went to the opera! I had never been to the opera, but my old singing teacher is an opera singer, so I have been around opera people before! The opera was called Cassandra, and it was sung in English with captions in both English and German, so I kept one eye on the performance and the other on the German subtitles. The beginning was a bit scary as it was a very realistic mass death scene! However, there was a really interesting moment towards the end…

In my life, I am lucky enough to have three maternal figures- my amazing mum Sonia, Sylvia, whom I affectionately call “Uni Mutti” (uni mum) and my stepmother. The names Sonia and Sylvia can be spelt in different ways. There are people called Sonia, Sonja, and Sonya; the name Sylvia can also be spelt Silvia. In the opera, one of the characters was pregnant and was trying to think of baby girl names. I thought my eyes and ears were deceiving me when she sang “Sonia,” and the name appeared on the caption monitor, which is exactly how my mum spells it! Just as I was getting over this coincidence, the character sang “Sylvia”, and again, the familiar spelling popped up on the monitor! An opera featuring the names of two of my maternal figures being performed in my spiritual home country?! It was almost like the universe was trying to tell me something!

However, my two most “oh my goodness” moments happened at wall memorials.

 One day, we went to the main wall memorial. I have been reading a lot about the wall and East Germany lately, so I know a lot about the subject. Seeing the concrete for myself and reading the plaques on the ground dedicated to the people who died made it real to me!! I have always known that Sylvia grew up in East Berlin, but seeing this has made me appreciate what she lived through!

My other poignant moment happened after visiting a more secluded wall memorial in the grounds of the Bundestag called The Parliament Of Trees. I was staying on the city’s east side and crossed a bridge into the west to investigate the curious thing I had noticed a few days ago. Half an hour later, it started to rain, so we decided to return to the hostel, only to find that history had seemingly repeated itself! Police blocked off all of the bridges back to the east, and I could not get onto the other side! As my mum sweet-talked a rather handsome policeman into letting us across the bridge, I couldn’t help but smirk at the ridiculous parallel to the history of Berlin!

The day after this rather ridiculous reenactment of German history, it was time to go to Jena! The small city made a big Impression on me last year, so I was excited to return! The train ride was a few hours, but time seemed to fly, and before I knew it, I was there! Like my home village of North Queensferry, the train station in Jena is on top of a big hill, and my hotel was at the bottom of this hill and on the other side of the city! Nobody from the course was available to help me with my suitcase, so I ended up having to push the suitcase while my mum pushed me in my wheelchair! This was quite hard work, and the muscles in my left arm ached and burned as I stopped the case from flying down the hill! To my relief, when I got onto the road on which the hotel was, a nice local student (who slightly reminded me of Lisa in a way) helped us the rest of the way!

The following morning, I arrived at the university and was welcomed by many excited students who were pleased to see me. Last year, I was the new person on the course, so it took people a while to warm up to me. Hence, it was so nice to receive such a lovely welcome back, as people told me that having my outstanding level of German in the classroom was very useful and joked with me about why I wasn’t in the top group yet! This year, a lady from my own uni called Christine would support me in class. Christine was there last year and was also in the meeting I spoke at in January, so we knew each other quite well. She is also a good colleague of my Sylvia, which I think perhaps contributed to why she took care of me so well! My lecturer this year was a lady called Regina. She was around last year, but I was not in her class, so we didn’t really interàct.

The first thing I learned in class was that Regina had quite a sense of humour!! She would come up with these one-liners, which were often accompanied by body language, which just made it funnier! She also seemed really curious about the way I communicated. She appeared impressed with the way I could type with my nose and speak it in perfect German! However, before long, I noticed someone else…

Across the room was a blonde who seemed as interested in East Germany as I was! My best friend Chloe often talks about how she knew she had to speak to me the moment she saw my silk scarf. I experienced the same feeling when I heard this woman talk so passionately about a subject I had also read widely about! At that moment, I told myself I had to make friends with this woman by the end of the holiday!!

As luck would have it, there was a spare seat next to her at dinner that night, so I got the chance to get to know her! It turns out that she used to be a language teacher just like I want to be one day! I also realised that she has the same sense of humour as I do, so we basically sat giggling over our schnitzels all evening!!

On Wednesday morning, there was a pronunciation workshop, and it was agreed that this wouldn’t be useful for me because of the way I communicate, so I got to have a one-to-one with Christine, like I did ìn the afternoons last year. The previous evening, my mum had spotted a poster about a hunger strike to free a theology student who had been studying in Jena and was arrested in Hungary for their ties with an extremist group. For this session, Christine brought along a newspaper with an article about the student. We discussed them along with a few other things. In class, I often felt a bit self-conscious speaking out loud (I don’t really know why) so it was nice to have the freedom to speak out loud without worrying about anything!  

That evening me, my mum, Christine and two guys from my class whom I got to know last year went out for an impromptu meal! At first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to join because the restaurant was a Vietnamese place, and I wasn’t sure if the food would be too spicy. Also, in my heart, I was in Germany, and I wanted German food. Despite my initial doubts, it was a delightful evening, and I’m thrilled I went! Last year, maybe because I was new, I didn’t get invited to anything outside the formal school timetable, meaning that I ate dinner with the entire school or on my own with no happy medium. Therefore, it was very nice just to relax and bond with a few friendly people without being absolutely surrounded by colleagues!

The next day felt quite special to me. We went on a trip to a city called Halle, and the night before, I wrote to Sylvia about this trip because I had learned that the town was in the same state as the city where she was born. To my absolute delight, I discovered she studied in this city! It felt so cool to visit another city that meant something to her! Although this was a big part of why it was special, there is another reason. A few years ago, I choreographed a dance film called Too Good For The SQA, which ended with me dancing to a Händel piece, and Halle was the birthplace of Friedrich Händel!!!

 Although I  have been studying and speaking German for five and a half years now,  my mum has never really picked up any German words before. However, she did pìck up a few phrases in Halle. First of all, we went on a guided tour, and Julia and another woman from our class were talking and got ahead of the group, and Christine shouted  “nicht so schnell!” (not so fast). Mum had learned that schnell meant fast in Berlin, so she understood what this exclamation meant! The other thing she learned is one of my favourite German phrases – “genau!” which means “exactly!’. Kim says genau a lot, so since working with her, I’ve wanted to say it every time I agree with mum, but I have had to hold back because of mum’s lack of German knowledge, so I am genuinely so pleased that she has mastered this word!

After a Czech lunch, we went to the house where Händel was born! There was some doubt as to how much of the house I would be able to access in my wheelchair but like always I proved everyone wrong and I could go into all the rooms! My favourite room was the beautiful collection of old musical instruments! The tour guide gave a demonstration of a selection of the instruments along with a very technical explanation in German of how it works. I was really surprised at how much I could actually understand!

In Halle is the world’s oldest chocolate factory which makes  the famous Halloren Kügel (Halloren bullets) which are chocolate balls filled with nougat type stuff. After we went to the Händel house, we had a free hour so mum and I decided to visit the factory outlet shop. I was literally a kid in a sweet shop! There were shelves and shelves of all kinds of Kügel! For a second, I just sat there and admired the different coloured boxes, feeling like I had just been transported to Wonka’s chocolate factory, before I spotted the flavour that  jumped out at me the most- salted caramel! My favourite flavour of pretty much anything!

The walk from the shop to the train station was a very wet and cold voyage, I was wearing one of Chloe’s thin summer dresses and no tights so the cold was beginning to go deep into my legs and feet! Despite being chilled to the bone, I was determined to take a picture of myself ìn the city where my dear friend had studied so that I could make Sylvia’s day! As I drew nearer and nearer to Halle Hauptbahnhof where I would meet my colleagues to get on the train, I became worried that the picture would have to be of me and the sign on the platform that said Halle! Luckily it was at this moment that my mum spotted something so curious that it was worth taking a photo of- an ice cream vending machine! I removed my hood, allowing my dark pigtails to get soaked and took a picture… the things I do for the people I love!!!

On the train back to Jena, everyone was cold and wet! I got a glimpse of Julia and her normally perfect long straight platinum hair hung in wet, stringy curls around her face as if she was just out of the shower! At this point, everything below my knee was completely numb from the cold and I was completely exhausted! Despite this, the journey was quite fun. People shared Kügel and just chatted. Last year I couldn’t do the excursion because it wasn’t wheelchair accessible and even  though I enjoyed my day away from people, I’m really glad that I got to go on this year’s field trip!

The next morning I couldn’t open my eyes when my alarm went! I was completely knackered and still slightly cold from Halle! As I lay there practically unconscious for an extra hour, little did I know that I would make another step towards independence that evening!

Germany has always been good for my independence! I get to order food, organise train assistance and speak to people who mum would normally deal with in the UK. However, up until now, my mum has always accompanied me to every evening activity. On this evening we would go to the cinema on the market square to watch a German-language film. Since the start of the week, it was clear that the film would have subtitles but it wasn’t clear what language the subtitles would be in until Friday. Upon hearing at lunchtime that the subtitles would be in German, mum asked me if I would be comfortable just getting dropped off at the cinema and just watching the movie with my colleagues and her coming to pick me up at the end of the film. My heart soared! I’m 22 now and I want more independence but I have never been trusted like THIS! I said that it would be absolutely fine as long as she let Christine know and I started to really look forward to my little bit of independence!!!

That afternoon Julia and I were sitting in German poetry class, she asked me if I was going to the cinema later and laughed at how proudly I said “ja, aber Mama nicht!” (”yes but not mum!”). She could tell by the massive proud grin on my face that this was a big deal for me!

That night my mum left me with Christine and the leader of the course Polina. I was feeling really proud of myself for being so independent! I left the rest of the school to go down the stairs and Polina and I went to get the lift. In German the word for lift is “Aufzug” which literally translates to “up train” and given the state of German trains, it was hardly surprising when the lift did not work! The man who worked at the cinema kept pressing the call button but nothing was happening! Eventually, he figured out that it would work if he went downstairs and rode it up from there! Unfortunately for me and Polina, this was when we discovered that the light above us was motion-activated so every 2 minutes we had to take it in turns to jump so it went back on again!

Thankfully, Regina waited until I was downstairs before she played the film. It was a comedy about the week before the Ostmark was abolished. Even though the subtitles were in German, they didn’t quite match what the characters were saying which bugged me a lot! I did enjoy the film despite this mild annoyance. However, sitting in a dark room after a long busy week studying is not the best idea so I only saw three quarters of the movie before I fell fast asleep!!

I awoke confused and disoriented with Christine standing in front of me. The lights were on and it was time to go home! Groggily, I rubbed my eyes and sat myself up in my chair as Christine welcomed me back! Once I had my bearings back, she helped me out of the cinema room and into the foyer where my mum was waiting! Although I had fallen asleep, I was super proud of myself for managing this!

My final full day in my beloved Germany turned out to be extremely stressful! First of all, I was nearly late to class and only made it by a minute! I thought that this would be the drama for the day…oh how wrong I was…

At break time, my mum came in looking very worried! She told  me that our train journey that we would take the train journey the following day had been cancelled! My mind raced, I was expected at a dance event on the Monday so I simply had to travel home within the proceeding 36 hours! Mum was trying to give me instructions but I couldn’t process them through my own racing thoughts! I didn’t hear anything that Regina said between break and lunch! My brain was trying to process all this stress!

Me, mum and Christine spent the lunch break sitting in my classroom on the phone. Christine was playing advocate for my mum because the English-speaking department of Deutsche Bahn was closed by this time. As Christine talked on the phone, I followed the conversation and every time it would start sounding like we were getting out of the country, a problem would be found and the journey would be scrapped! After a few cycles of this, we decided to try travelling that evening! In my heart, I didn’t want to do this because it would mean that I would miss the graduation evening and therefore not have the chance to say goodbye to Julia but I understood that this was potentially the only option so I didn’t protest!

After lunch, Christine disappeared to another room to continue her argument with Deutsche Bahn! My body was still in the classroom but my brain was trying to grapple with the very real possibility that I might just have to make a sudden exit without any proper goodbyes! At one point, I actually had to ask the Scottish guy next to me what we were meant to be doing! It was a mere five minutes later when Christine came in,  gave me a thumbs up and whispered “ihr reist ganz früh morgen ab!” (”you are leaving really early tomorrow morning!”). I could have hugged that woman!

Right at the end of the day Regina presented me with a box of Halloren Kügel for being so inspiring! I didn’t quite know what to say but I was extremely touched! I had only known this woman for six days but I had managed to make an Impression on her! I sort of felt bad for my colleagues because they were watching me get this special treatment but I found this small gesture extremely sweet!

At the graduation evening, Julia and I sat together filling the room with hysterical laughter! I remember last year, I couldn’t sit with the friends that I had made at the graduation evening because I couldn’t access the table where they were sitting so it was so nice to be able to just eat with my friend! It was a buffet dinner and everyone just seemed to get on. Quite a few people asked me if I wanted to come back next year. Although last year was amazing, I feel like this year was even better so I concluded that yes, I would like to go back next year and every single year that I am able to!

In conclusion, my 2 weeks in Germany were very fun! I don’t know whether I learned more in or out of the classroom but I did obtain a lot of new knowledge about the German language and hist. It was my longest holiday and so it’s quite fitting that this is my longest article! I can’t wait to visit my geistheimatsland soon!

Eilidh Elizabeth Molly Mcgrath 💜

Uni 4

Wednesday was a very special day in my uni life. I decided to mark my 22nd birthday by submitting my final essay for the year! This means that I have now finished the second level of German and only have one year of German to go before I start my Spanish adventure! Level 2 German has been a blast, and I have grown so much as a person on the module!

This year has been fun despite my illness at the start of the year and the loss of a childhood friend in January. I got to work with a great tutor I met at last year’s German Conversation Day. I have really enjoyed working with Kim. It is pretty weird because she is, in many ways, quite similar to me. We are both from Scotland with dark curls and a love for swimming and the German language. On top of this, we have a similar sense of humour, which has made me feel comfortable in the module! This has encouraged me to put in 100% effort. Last year, I didn’t attend any of my German lectures or participate in forum discussions because I felt uncomfortable with my tutor. Yet, this year, I have been the loudest on the tutor group forum and have not scored below 82% in any assignment. I have gone to almost all of my lectures, including one on a lady called Elisabeth Graul, who was a prisoner in East Germany… this was not even part of my module; I just went because Kim was hosting it . It seemed interesting… this kind of led me down my own wee reading tangent on East Germany which has been really fun !

The one thing that I wasn’t really looking forward to this year was the compulsory online “Residential School” that I had to do in March. Since registering for the module, I had been a bit nervous and reluctant to do it because the thought of spending 3 days on video calls for 4-5 hours with someone who wasn’t even my own tutor seemed a bit overwhelming ! However, to my relief, I was assigned to Lilian who, if you have read my last article Day School 2- Conversation Day, you will remember as the smiley Austrian ! Having her for this intense weekend made it seem like less of an impossible task and even quite enjoyable ! It was still very tiring and so intense that I actually have no recollection of any dinner that my mum made me that weekend ! But I was able to participate in it without any major problems ! At the end of my last day, I actually had to send an email to Sylvia, apologising for being so dramatic about it !

This year I have had a whole team of great women behind me ! First of all, as well as the lovely Kim as my tutor, me and Sylvia have just grown closer and closer ! When I get a grade for an assignment, she is the first person I tell ! Also, I have invented a kind of pet name for her which I call her pretty much all the time (except in front of the bosses) and when she sees me in real life, she can’t help but hug and kiss me like crazy ! Next, I now have a proper older sister in  Chloe! I am not the most graceful of eaters and this usually makes me a bit self conscious. However, when I eat with Chloe, I don’t feel even slightly insecure, the woman just takes me as I am ! At my birthday party on Sunday, she even got my eating equipment out for me so I could have my cake in the most dignified way possible ! None of my friends have helped me in this way before ! Also, She always makes me feel like the most beautiful girl in the world at all times and so I try to repay her by helping her with her German ! Finally my student mentor from last year, Aoife, has kept in touch ! Although her language-learning journey is going in a different direction from mine, she was a massive help when I lost my friend and we still keep each other entertained with pony videos. These women have become like family to me and there have been a few issues this year that I don’t know if I would have made it through if I didn’t have them !

I have mixed feelings about my next module. on one hand I am very much looking forward to Advanced German because I have felt a little bit bored in recent tutorials because I have basically mastered everything and so I haven’t been learning anything from them ! Also I’m going to be working with Lilian next year and although she will never be Kim, she seems like a really kind lady and she is from Vienna so I am going to have the advantage of a native speaker. On the other hand this is going to be my last year of studying my Geistmuttersprache (spiritual mother tongue) and I get through German work really quickly, so although I am going to still have Sylvia who I can speak to in German, by this time next year, this lovely era of studying German is going to have come to an end ! Although I know that Sylvia will keep my German oiled, I’m worried about forgetting my award-winning German that I have worked so hard on over the past 5 years !

Before I start the last chapter of my German adventure however, my summer revision is looking quite exciting ! I am going back to Jena to do the same course I did last year ! It’s going to be so good to be immersed in the language like that again ! Also, Jena is a very cute little city so I’m looking forward to seeing the views again. The only thing I am not so crazy about is the crazy population of wasps that reside in the city ! Last year I was really harassed by them ! On top of my Jena trip, Sylvia is talking about maybe meeting me for a drink at some point in the holidays and doing a really chilled German conversation session with me. I think that this is a very kind offer so if we find a date when we are both free, I would like to take her up on it !

On Tuesday morning I told my granny that in hindsight I was actually glad that I didn’t get into Edinburgh University ! Yes, Edinburgh may be a really prestigious uni, but I love my OU family and I don’t think that I would have people like that at EU. Also the OU are very good at adjusting stuff for my needs so that I can be the absolute linguistic unicorn that I am ! I know that I was technically rejected because I don’t have any English qualifications, but part of me thinks that my rejection from Edinburgh University was actually the universe sending me here ! For the first time in my life, I feel like I belong!

Day School 2- Conversation Day

On Saturday, I went to what I now call “Uni Christmas.” It was my second Day School of my university career! I absolutely love these events now, and I find it so strange when I think back to how shy, nervous,  and reluctant to go I was last year!

I could hardly contain my excitement in the week leading up to it! For a whole week, I kept having to explain to my mum and my staff why I was giggling, excessively grinning, or even bouncing around! I’m sure my regular readers will not be surprised that the majority of my excitement was provoked by the opportunity to speak German all day. Still, there were a few other contributors to this wild excitement- First of all it would be the anniversary of me meeting my best friend Chloe who came into my life at the Day School last year and also the anniversary of my gift being discovered by the university which subsequently led to many different opportunities. The second factor of my excitement was that my tutor Kim would be there, and I planned to surprise her with a well-deserved thank-you gift! Much like a child on Christmas Eve, my excitement affected my sleep! Although I had gone to bed at half 10 the night before the Day School, I was still very much wide awake when I got an email at 5:20AM!

I am pretty famous for putting together nice colourful outfits, but an extra level of thought went into my outfit on Saturday. Last year, I was wearing my favourite shirt- a loose dark green tee with the words EAT SLEEP DEUTSCH REPEAT on it- when I met Chloe, and she rather shamelessly bought the same one after meeting me, and this year we had decided to twin! I styled my shirt with a purple tartan skirt from my favourite brand, Snag, because purple is my favourite colour. This was paired with dark green tights also from Snag to reflect the green of my top, iridescent Doc Martin shoes because I had worn them last year when I was studying in Germany and a cute little lilac college jacket from Monsoon for 3 reasons, 1: unicorns are my favourite animal, 2: I needed something purple to go with my skirt and 3: I had put Kim’s present in a gift bag with a purple unicorn on it and thought that it would be cute to coordinate with it. However, the most interesting thing I wore was the unicat pin that Isobel gave me last year. I have worn this pìn to every significant event since m award ceremony in February last year, but this time, I was wearing it for a different reason. Until now, the pin has helped me with my shyness and has given me the confidence to talk to people. Yet, recently, I have noticed that I have sort of transformed! I’m no longer the shy, quiet girl who can’t look people in the eyes but a super-confident worshipped young linguist who can light up a room! Isobel has played a significant role in my linguistic journey, so I wore the pin out of respect as my little way of saying thank you!

I had woken up with very tangled hair after my night of jumping around my bed and as a result, brushing my long curly hair took almost double the amount of time that my mum had built into the morning schedule! Because of this, I couldn’t have any breakfast before I left! Despite originally running late, I arrived at the university an hour early so I had plenty of time to sit and eat the chocolately breakfast biscuits that I had grabbed on my way out the door! Over the past 8 or so months that we have been working together, Kim has interrupted many breakfasts with emails so it was not a surprise when the dark curls of the woman appeared in front of me when I had my mouth full! Super excited and trying my best not to get chocolate everywhere, I signalled to my mum to get the present out of the backpack! All I had told Kim about this was that I needed to have a quick word with her so she was so delighted and surprised that she almost cried! After she had gone upstairs and while mum was away trying to suss out where the lift was, Sylvia appeared from behind and gave me her usual passionate hug! This hug was so squishy that my scrunchy was knocked out! She then introduced me to her Swiss colleague Berbel, who knew exactly who I was and is apparently a big fan of The Non Verbal Linguist…. A few weeks ago, I was required to take part in an online intensìve weekend as part of my degree so although I recognized her name from that, she didn’t have her camera on so I was so confused before Sylvia explained who this woman was!!

I then turned towards the window so that I could see who was coming. I work as a student buddy for the level of German below me and until now I had strong doubts that anyone was actually reading my forum posts. So it was such a lovely rewarding surprise when all these people were saying “Hallo Äli” because they recognized me from the pictures that I had been posting on the buddy forum! It wasn’t too long before I saw a familiar sight coming up the drive! MY CHLOE!!!!!!! I hadn’t seen my beret-wearing bestie since December and thus as I was watching her draw nearer and nearer I started to go completely crazy like Animal from the Muppets!! That first hug after so long was like having that first cup of tea on a winter morning, indescribably lovely!!

My tutor for the day, another lady called Silvia came after a while to show me to the room that I would partly be working in that day. I chose my seat, front and centre! This was a stark contrast to the seat that I had tried to choose last year right at the back, which I feel is a good physical representation of my growth in confidence! However, the first session was in the main room where all the levels could learn together. Unsurprisingly, I chose to sit next to my Chloe, although still pretty much front and centre! As all the tutors were introducing themselves, I thought back to the previous year. All of these people at the front were total strangers, but because I made such an amazing impression at the event last year, I had great relationships with the majority of the line! Firstly, Kim was interested in me from the first German sentence that I had uttered at the last Day School and was now my beloved tutor with whom I had bonded with over our many similarities. A few people over stood Lilian, the really smiley Austrian who was ironically dressed in Ukrainian colours! Last year she had seemed so lovely! She is the kind of person who smiles with the eyes as well as the mouth and when I had my intensive weekend, I was lucky enough to be put in her group! Because of her good first impression that she had made at the Day School last year, upon discovering that I was working with her for the intensive weekend which I had previously been extremely anxious about, I felt much calmer and I was therefore able to participate in the weekend much more than I had expected and we have stayed in touch since then! On the other end of the line stood Sylvia. Although she was originally just in the background at last year’s Day School, since discovering my gift she has been really supportive of me and just generally looked after me at uni!  As I reflected, I glanced over at Chloe and felt the strangest feeling! These 4 women – Chloe and the 3 ladies standing in the line – comprised most of my uni support network! I then remembered that last year, I almost didn’t go to the Day School! “Wow, I would be a completely different person!” I thought as I realised, I only had these women because I went last year and started to wonder what my life would look like now if my mum and Isobel hadn’t talked me into doing so!

My daydream was cut short by the beginning of the first task. We had to line up in alphabetical order. Although my English-speaking name is spelt E-I-L-I-D-H, German speakers tend to struggle with the pronunciation of this traditional Scottish spelling, so when in a German-speaking environment, I spell it Ä-L-I as this creates the same sound! This technicality put me right at the start of the line! So I just sat there looking pretty while everyone else fumbled around trying to remember the alphabet! After everyone had managed to achieve this, our last exercise for the morning, before we all went into our separate groups was a very special activity for me because it was during this activity last year that me and Chloe first met! Speed dating! For this activity, me and Chloe were allowed to stay together and be one unit. Because Lilian knows that I love purple, she adopted this adorable system of picking people in purple to come and work with us! This activity really took me back to talking to Chloe for the first time and so I started giving her a loving back rub while we were working!

Then it was time to go into our separate rooms. I am now in the more advanced end of the OU German program and Chloe is still in the earlier stages of her German journey which meant that we got separated as we were assigned to different rooms! I didn’t really mind the split because even though I love my uni big sister to the moon and back, I felt like time apart was healthy as it allowed us to be the awesome individuals we are! I didn’t know anyone in the group and I had never worked with Silvia or Berbel before! The lack of familiar faces would have, in previous years, been very daunting for me and I probably would have been too shy to say anything! However thanks to my newly found confidence, I spoke to my colleagues with nothing so much as a bat of an eyelid and wasn’t even distracted by Sylvia darting in and out of the room! I just carried on speaking with my group no matter what! At a couple of points, my sass even came out! The majority of the session was group work but, towards the end, Silvia and Berbel talked to the whole room about podcasts. I listened to Berbel speak. This was the first time I had heard (or more likely, paid attention to) Swiss German being spoken. It is beautiful! It has a slight tune to it like Italian but the words are still very much German! Best of both worlds!!

After lunch, I got to have a 1 to 1 with the lovely Kim! It seemed that she wasn’t even down for 1-1s this year but made an exception for me! I had prepared a talk about Pink Monkey, the precious cuddly monkey that I have had since  I was a baby! Although it did take us a bit of time to get started because we got chatting about unrelated topics such as the struggles of curly hair and I lost the photo of Pink Monkey that I was going to use, when we eventually got started, it felt really nice giving another presentation to Kim because it was while doing the same last year I realized what a great team we would make! This was a beautiful full-circle moment that I wanted to freeze! However, before we knew it, a whole hour had passed and Kim had to go! I felt quite emotional when our session was over! I have already done all the work for my module and sadly, she doesn’t work on the next level of German. So although I technically have her as a tutor until the  end of May and although I will hopefully see her at next year’s Conversation Day, this sort of felt like an end!

Sylvia then came into the room for a much-needed catch-up! Although I didn’t physically feel tired, the lack of sleep was starting to affect my German! At one point I was trying to ask if I could work with Lilian next year and even after deleting and retyping the German word for “next” three times, I still couldn’t write it properly! This was so frustrating and also a bit embarrassing because of my reputation for being a great Germanist! However, thankfully, Sylvia knows me well enough now that she could actually understand this stuttering chaos of a question without needing to finish and said that she would ask for me! Readers, This is proof that even very competent linguists sometimes make mistakes so if you are on your own language-learning journey please keep that in mind!

After a while, Berbel entered the room and sat down at the table where me and Sylvia were. She quickly began telling me how I was an impressive student I was! I have always believed that I am only the woman I am because of the people around me, so I quickly explained that my success at the OU was really thanks to Sylvia’s support… I think something must have been in the air on Saturday because just as Kim had been emotional in the morning and I had teared up half an hour before, now was apparently Sylvia’s turn! Upon hearing my comment her eyes filled with tears!  Next year I am definitely bringing tissues!

Students began slowly meandering back into the room ready for the last part of the Day School. I tentatively watched the door for Chloe! Eventually my beautiful sister appeared! After she had sat herself down next to me, she filled me in on how she had befriended Berbel! My gosh, that girl could make friends with a wall! We spent the last session with 80% of our attention on the lesson and 20% on each other! It had been a whole year since we had met! I can’t actually believe how much we have done in the past year! It almost feels like I have known her for my whole life!

After Sylvia had given me another squishy hug and a small kiss on the forehead to bid me auf Wiedersehen, it was time to go! Ás I left, I began to ponder the logistics of spending a January weekend in London. Unfortunately, next year will be my last year studying my beloved German. Although there are also Spanish Conversation Days I plan to go to, I don’t expect to have the same experience at a Spanish Conversation Day as I have at a German one because German is my favourite language. Although Spanish is also a beautiful language, it doesn’t hold the same personal connection as German. Because of this, I would really like to attend next year’s London Conversation Day as well as the Edinburgh one so that I can make the most out of my last year of German studies! I don’t know how feasible this will be though because of many factors!

Due to budget cuts, Conversation Days are quite vulnerable to getting stopped! I have written this article to demonstrate how these events are not just great for speaking practice but also essential networking events! As students of a distance-learning uni, we don’t get the same opportunities to form the same friendships and relationships that students at traditional universities get. Face-to-face Conversation Days provide us with more opportunities to do that and my beautiful friendship with Chloe is hard evidence of that! Additionally, Kim and Lillian have been able to get to know my needs well due to Conversation Day which has given them the knowledge to be the best tutors to me as possible! I know that the university compiles information about the needs of students, however getting to spend a day with someone is far more valuable training than simply reading a file!

In conclusion, as a linguist, Conversation Day is almost just as an important date on the calendar as Eurovision! The anticipation and excitement of it has been a silver lining on the darkest days of this year! I have grown so much in confidence since last year and I can’t wait to see how I evolve from now to Conversation Day next year!

Eilidh Elizabeth Molly McGrath 💜

Presentation

This Tuesday was a day of mixed emotions. I had been invited in November to give a presentation as part of an inclusivity training seminar for staff across the departments of Languages, Education and Health and Social Care. However, on the morning of this engagement, I very sadly had to go and pay my respects to one of my fellow strong non-verbal girls 💛.

When I got the email from Sylvia after coming home from running a dance teacher training session on a cold November night inviting me to take part in this meeting, I practically jumped with excitement! Not only would it be a chance for me to live up to my reputation as a great language student, but it would also provide me with some really early training that I could take forward into my career as a language teacher! Therefore, I didn’t have to think about it too much before I agreed! Even though I got more and more nervous as the meeting drew nearer, I never once thought about changing my mind on participating in this engagement because I knew how valuable my personal experience would be to the academics and how appealing doing this would look on my CV!

When I arrived at the Open University office in Edinburgh, my brain was going at 200 miles an hour! Not only was I extremely nervous about facing a video conference full of important academics, but I was also reeling from the funeral that I had just come from. For some reason which I don’t know, on the mantelpiece in the reception room of the OU office sits a pink stuffed unicorn! As the readers who know me personally will know, unicorns are my favourite animal and pink is my second favourite colour (narrowly beaten by purple) so I tried to focus all my attention on this unicorn in an attempt to slow down my racing mind while I waited for Sylvia to meet me. I had arrived half an hour before I was due to meet Sylvia so I spent quite a lot of time staring meditatively at the unicorn! However, I only truly calmed down when Sylvia came and, after greeting me with a warm embrace, took me to the room where we would be joining the meeting.

I was kicking off the whole meeting! I was told that that was the least nerve-wracking position to be in because apparently, one can get one’s job done quickly and just relax and enjoy the experience, I however did not buy this! To me, going first was a lot of pressure as I would be setting the tone for the whole meeting and although Sylvia would be reading my presentation from a document that I had already prepared, my chest was tightening with nerves as more and more people joined the video call.

After introducing myself as a language student, student buddy and student mentor, I let Sylvia crack on with my presentation. As she read my words, I began to relax and as she detailed my adventures at uni, I felt a strong sense of admiration coming from the screen in front of me! When Sylvia had finished, I was asked a couple of questions before the next part of the meeting got underway to allow me time to type my answers. Even though I had been in tears just a matter of hours before, I began to smile! I smiled because I had gone through with it, because my presentation was very well received and because Prunella’s love of language was discussed at the funeral, so I felt like I had done it for her!

The rest of the meeting was very interesting! Even though I felt like I couldn’t contribute to the topics that especially interested me because I was just a student, I sat back and took everything in!  As a student, it was so cool to see the inner workings of my university! Also, as a future language teacher, it was very useful to learn how to support different types of students in their learning. I have already updated my CV with this engagement, and I am really proud of myself and how much my confidence has grown over the recent years!

In conclusion, Prunella was a fully signed-up member of the Strong Girls Club so I feel like not letting her death discourage me from doing this was a fitting tribute to her. Also, I used to be so shy that I didn’t look people in the eye, so doing this was a good piece of evidence for how far I have come!

Eilidh Elizabeth Molly McGrath 💜

In memory of Prunella Kate Hay 💛

15.01.2009-11.01.2025

My Linguistic 2024

It’s Hogmanay, and as it has become a tradition, I’m recapping the linguistic adventures I have been on this year! It has been a pretty big year for me, and truth be told, I feel like I started uni in March rather than last October because my uni life only genuinely started after I attended an event at the end of March! Overall, this year has been quite successful in German and uni. Let’s look back at what I have done in 2024!

I started the year on a high by winning my second award for my skills in the German language. I had to go to Manchester for the ceremony. This was an adventure in itself because I had never been to Manchester before. The ceremony was my first black-tie event, so I had the opportunity to be as glamorous as I wanted to be! I was only told that I had been nominated for the award, so when I was invited up to accept the award along with all the other candidates from my category, it was a very proud moment, even if I did lose track of my trophy during the evening!

In March, I had my first opportunity to show off my impressive German skills to the OU community by attending the German Day School held at Edinburgh Napier University. I almost didn’t go because of shyness. In hindsight, I am delighted that I did, in fact, go because not only did I end up meeting my now best friend Chloe, but I also found out that I could study all the German modules first instead of alternating between German and the other language that I choose to study! This wasn’t even the best part of the Day School! As well as Chloe, I met two other delightful people. Firstly, I met a lovely lady who has supported and championed me ever since. She even fixed a problem I was having with the module I was studying at the time!  Because of Sylvia, I have had many more opportunities this year than I had last year. The second person who I met was the lady who would become my tutor for the module I’m studying now. Kim was instantly excited by my gift from the moment she heard me speak German and we got on well at the Day school so it was arranged that I would be put in her tutor group this year. I have noticed that she really wants to get things right for me, and being in her group has made me more confident. Not with German, I was always confident with that, but socially. I have been going to tutorials and posting on the tutor group forum, none of which I did last year!

In July my 4 year dream came true when I finally got to go to Germany! Studying in Jena was absolutely awesome! Not only did I get to study German for a week in a real classroom but I also got a lot of opportunity to practice my German in the wild! I was the youngest in the group by several decades and it wasn’t absolutely accessible but I had such a great time that neither of these things particularly bothered me and in January I am going to sign up to go again! Studying a foreign language in a country where the language is actually spoken is an amazing opportunity for any language student and the German landscape is very pretty so I’m very keen to go back! The majority of the access issues were because I signed up about 6 weeks before the trip so if I sign up next month, when applications open, then it should be better.

I can’t remember most of September and October due to personal issues but at some point during this time, the university made me a poster girl by writing an article about me and my German skills! This was the second time an educational institution had written about me. In the first half of secondary school, I had a maths teacher who called me a “trailblazer”. This was before I had discovered my gift, but I guess she saw the remarkability in me early.

I ended the year with a bang by being  asked to contribute to a meeting next month. At first, I was a bit concerned because the thought of speaking in front of not just tutors but also important people in the university’s school of languages, but now I am very excited about this opportunity because not every 21-year-old gets to do something as high fallooting as this?!

Next year is going to be the start of my final German module. I am very sad about this but I still have 10 months before I have to face this depressing reality so I plan to enjoy the rest of my current module and just play dumb regarding this. I have already booked myself onto next year’s Day School because I found it really fun this year. Also, I am looking forward to going back to Jena! Perhaps I will also be able to explore a different area of Germany while I am there. I might also ask Chloe to do some Spanish revision with me ahead of me starting beginners’ Spanish in 2026. However, I do believe that German will forever be my favourite language!

Uni 3

So, this month was the start of my second year of university. After receiving a distinction in my first year of German, I decided to spend this year doing solely German. On top of my studies, I am also working as a student buddy for the German module I did last year and on top of the buddying job, I was also asked to volunteer as a peer mentor. Despite my busy schedule and a personal issue at the start of term, I have already completed the work for the first semester.

Straight away, I noticed that level 2 was more work than level 1. The chapters were longer, and more note-taking was required. Because of this, I decided to use one big Word document to record my notes this year instead of handwriting the notes like I did last year, as typing is faster for me and makes my notes more straightforward to read! If you have read my article Day School, you might remember me talking about a lovely lady from Inverness. Well, we got on so well that it was arranged for her to be my tutor for this year. Last year, I didn’t attend any of the German lectures because I didn’t feel comfortable with my first tutor, and by the time I got my second tutor, I was finished with the work for the year, so there was no point in going to any of her lectures. However, my tutor for level 2 German (L223) is much more welcoming and nicer that I have been going to her lectures, even though I am always weeks ahead of what is being discussed and I feel like they are helping me with my skills.

By some insane coincidence, my tutor is also on the team that manages peer mentors! I wasn’t planning on being a mentor, but after the day school in March, someone with influence in the School of Languages and Applied Linguistics asked me to join the peer mentoring project. I have chosen only to be responsible for one person as I didn’t want to overwhelm myself by taking on too many people alongside my studies and the buddying job I am also doing. That and I feel like by having only one mentee I can focus on fully meeting her individual mentoring needs rather than having to divide my time equally between multiple people. I didn’t know if I would enjoy this role, but I have to say that it feels good being there for someone through the first year of their studies.

I am also a buddy, a paid role for which I had been waiting my entire first year to apply. I am responsible for the pastoral care of all students studying Level 1 intermediate German (L113). It entails sharing my own journey through the module, reminding the students about assignment deadlines and giving practical tips for life on the module, as well as answering any questions that students might post on the module forum. It is a bit of a thankless job because the amount of forum posts I write significantly outweighs the number of forum posts I have to answer, but it is my first German-related job, so I am proud of that!

Although I have not made any new friends on my own module yet, my friendships with Aoife and Chloe are still going strong. In fact, I believe that I hang out with Chloe more than I have ever hung out with a friend in my life! She has practically joined my band, Stride, and we have even written a song together! I’m at the point now where I can’t even imagine life without her! As for Aoife, even though she is focusing on her French this year, she still has time to crack me up with a hilarious video pretty much weekly!

In conclusion, even though I had a significant wobble at the start of term, I have now regained my German mojo, and I am back to enjoying German, and I’m having a great time again! The university has even written an article about my gift! I did find losing interest in the very thing that I had been studying for four years very disconcerting and this made it a huge relief when I found out that this was just caused by something medical! I have been The Non Verbal Linguist since 2021 and it is now part of my identity so I will be The Non Verbal Linguist forever!

Eilidh Elizabeth Molly McGrath 💜

Jena

Last week I finally got to go to Germany! Not only that, but I also got to study German at a German university! What an exciting experience!

At the beginning of June, I was scrolling through the uni forums when I saw the final call for sign-ups to go to somewhere called Jena for a 6-day-long summer course studying German at the city university. I remembered that when I was at the German day school in March, someone told my mum about the trip, so it was already on the family radar. I felt it would not be unreasonable to ask my mum if we could go. Mum agreed, so I emailed the tutor in charge of the trip and explained my needs.  After consulting with her colleagues in Jena, it was decided that I could go, but I had to be in the beginner’s class because the level I had applied for was full. I decided that being in the bottom class in Jena was better than not being in Jena at all, so I accepted the compromise because it would be an excellent opportunity to practice my German teaching skills.

My mum does not speak German, so I had to take the lead on everything. When I am with my mum in Scotland, I tend to let her take the lead in most social situations, such as ordering food at a restaurant. In German, however, I was the strongest communicator, so I had to deal with every situation thrown my way, and as a result, I did many things for the first time. Not only did I order in many restaurants, but I also had to talk to our incredibly fast-speaking hotel receptionist about a complicated situation concerning an issue with our room. I was always able to get exactly what we needed! This series of “łittle wins” gave me a good sense of independence and pride in myself.

The class was from 9 am to 3 pm, from Sunday to the fridày, and there was a lunch break in the middle. On the first day, I stayed in the class the whole time and helped anyone who seemed stuck.  Although I was ok with thìs and people were very grateful for my help, I didn’t feel like I was being challenged enough, so it was agreed that I would be in the class in the morning and after lunch, I would have 1-1 conversation sessions with the woman from my university so that I could really get pushed in my German. These sessions were beneficial because I could not only practice and get feedback on my German from a native speaker but also got to prevìew the websites for both of my future German modules, which were very exciting!

After class, all the students on the course had dinner together on most nights, which was always outside. Eating outside in Germany is something that you have to do at your own risk, as I learned the hard way – the country has a hell of a lot of wasps who are not shy about bugging you if you have something delicious! I am petrified of wasps, so unfortunately, dinners always featured me flinching and jumping around to avoid them!

I think the best moment of the trip has to be what was said to me on the walk to the final dinner. In my class, there was this lovely Geordie mother I had been helping throughout the week because she was less confident in her German than the rest. About halfway through the walk, she came and found me and said she would not have managed the week without me! A sense of success and joy filled my heart at that moment!

In conclusion, although I did experience some minor accessibility issues, I had the time of my life. I’m definitely doing it again, but next time, I will apply at the right time so that more stuff is accessible. My next German adventure, however, will probably be to the Köln Christmas market!

Eilidh Elizabeth Molly McGrath