United Kingdom Linguistics Olympiad

I have been running the UKLO here at Richard Huish College, a sixth form college in Taunton, since 2012 and with, I like to think, some success – 1 student into the 2^nd round in 2012 and this year, and the reason I’m writing, 3 students fortunate enough to attend the training course at Corpus. It is those 3 students that I would like to report on, who all came back with very positive reports. Two of them have just won places to study linguistics/languages. Millie is going to Oxford to study French and linguistics and Annabel is off to Cambridge to study linguistics (leaving her French and Spanish behind). Ollie who earlier got into the 2^nd round went to Oxford to study maths.

I thought you would like to know of their path and of the role I think the Olympiad has played in really opening their eyes up to the world of languages beyond the formal school subjects of French, German and Spanish. Without the UKLO I do not think they would have considered linguistics as an option. They may have toyed with the idea but the UKLO gave them some concrete exposure. I have used their success to inspire other students and now that I also teach critical thinking (in addition to French and German) I also offer it as an extra to those students. It is a challenging test certainly but I value its difference, and for modern linguists it shows how narrow it is to have experience only of Romance and Germanic languages. I even found myself talking about Wolof the other day (about not conjugating verbs)  to open up horizons.

You have a supporter here. I use the UKLO for students, to support languages in the college and to get some publicity for us, and I think it plays an incredibly useful role in an increasingly instrumental and narrow curriculum. 

They did rather enjoy trying to penetrate Italian, and if they can enjoy such things at their age it bodes well for the future. We do have a fairly high proportion of children in our school with English as an additional language, so for us there is already an additional motivating factor.

I would also like to express my gratitude to you and the rest of those in charge of UKLO for giving me the extraordinary opportunities I’ve had over the last four years. I genuinely feel as though doing this competition has changed my life – I have met some of my best friends through it and in October I’m off to university for Linguistics, which I would never have even considered before UKLO. I would love to continue working closely with UKLO to give more people the opportunity to experience what I have since it was so completely life-changing for me.

Although a few dropped out as soon as they realised what was involved, a small group grew by word of mouth, and, in the end, met in their own time as well as in our weekly sessions to chew over the LO problems; they were not exclusively ‘higher achieving’ students.  One thing that has surprised me is the way some of the problems have brought out skills from students who’ve struggled with issues in our EngLang classes, given that they are thinking in LO in ways we don’t otherwise ask them to think.

Some really good students have chosen to take AS EngLang in their second year after coming to LO as AS MFL or ‘Science’ students, suddenly realising that EngLang isn’t actually about writing stories. Those who have got the most out of LO have been A2 students – it relies upon, and seems to help develop, the kind of ‘lateral’ thinking that hasn’t always developed at 16. Even the chattiest, most easily distracted students suddenly focussed and scribbled silently in ways I’d never seen them do in EngLang classes! 

I first caught the bug here when Dick posted something a few years ago, and can say that he, and the rest of the UKLO organisers, couldn’t be more approachable, helpful or supportive toward people who are interested in trying it out.

Let me heartily recommend the LO! To declare my interest, I am involved with the UK committee, but only as a result of the terrifically enjoyable experience I’ve had trialling the LO with my folks – I’ve run it as an ‘enrichment’ for a couple of years now, and students have thrived on it, sharpening their language skills, finding and bringing along like-minded friends, having a great time and even entering the national contest, so it is everso worth it, and not just for the buzz of entering a national contest; students have found it works wonders on personal statements, etc. In fact, at a recent Open Day/taster visit to York Uni, our current AS EngLang students were given an LO puzzle as a foretaste of Linguistics at degree level, so it clearly points them in the right direction

It’s been a great experience for us entering and we feel as MFL teachers we’ve got a lot of out it to see how our pupils of different abilities approached the problems and to see their way of thinking in a different context.