How can I prepare for a Modern Languages interview at Oxford?

Firstly, the most important thing is to try not to worry too much about your interview; no interview is the same, and different interviewers will have very different approaches. However, there are a few things you can do to give yourself as much confidence as possible so that you feel at ease and well-prepared. For my French interview at Oxford I was asked a few general questions about my personal statement, why I wanted to study French, then I was given an unseen text to read aloud and discuss, and my final question (to answer in French) was a fairly simple “Have you ever been to France?”.So how can you prepare for these different parts of the interview? Personal statement: Make sure you can talk confidently about what you’ve written; tutors want to see a genuine interest and passion for the subject! They aren’t going to try and trip you up, they might just ask you to go into slightly more depth about something you have mentioned. So the best way to prepare for this is to practice getting used to talking about your personal statement; you could either do this out loud by yourself, or even better try and get a friend, family member, or teacher to read it and ask you about it. Hopefully your school will be able to give you a mock interview; make sure you ask them about this in good time. Why do you want to study the subject: again, practice answering this as truthfully as possible, maybe give some different examples to what you’ve already said in your personal statement (but if you haven’t been asked about your personal statement, you can of course use it here to your advantage!). If you do really want to study the subject, which you probably do, then an honest answer is the best answer. Tutors just want to make sure you are passionate about it and have really considered what it will involve - so a good idea is to make sure you have looked on the university website and read what the course involves, if you can demonstrate that you are interested in what the course offers, and maybe a specific part of the course, that would be a great answer. Unseen text: This might sound horrible and the hardest part to practice, but actually you can prepare for this and practising will make it much less scary. Try and find some literature or poetry in the language, read a paragraph/verse aloud slowly and clearly, read it again, and try and make some notes/annotations in a few minutes. Practice analysing the language - Oxford languages is very literature based and there’s lots of close textual analysis, which is basically looking at the effect the text has on the reader. So don’t be afraid to say how the text makes you react/feel. You can point out more obvious things like a rhyming pattern or imagery, or maybe the text has a certain rhythm that makes it unusual; if you explain your thought process, the interviewer will probably try and help you reach a conclusion! Again, remember the interviewers don't want to catch you out, they genuinely want to see how you think and interpret the text - so don’t be afraid to talk through the text slowly and voice your thoughts aloud.Oral practice for target language: sadly there isn’t such a quick fix for this one, ideally try and do a bit of oral practice every now and then as early as possible (this will also help you hugely for your school exams!). Consistency is important here - try and do a small amount as often as possible, it could be just speaking to yourself for a few minutes a day before you go to bed, or reading a piece of text aloud. You could watch some Youtube videos, or some videos on news websites, or listen to some music in the language. Anything will help! As for more ‘quick fix’ practice, try and write some practice questions and answer them; the questions could be anything about the language’s culture, why you want to study it (ideally ask your school teacher to help you with this too). You could write down some key phrases and vocabulary for the different questions so you feel confident tackling a wide range of subjects.Finally, remember the most important thing is to not panic and try not to worry too much! Not everything depends on the interview: your personal statement, admissions test, and exam results are important too. Good luck!