The BA Applied Languages is designed to prepare you for an international career.
Primary language – choose from French, Spanish or English as a primary foreign language which you will study from post-A level (or equivalent) to an advanced level. You’ll gain a high level of written and verbal skills with a particular emphasis on the practical use of the language in an international context. On average we expect students to graduate with a C1 Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) level of proficiency in their primary language.
Secondary language – choose from French, Spanish, German, Japanese or Mandarin Chinese as your secondary language. You can study the language as a complete beginner or learn French or Spanish at post-A level. You may choose to drop your secondary language at the end of Year 2 or continue until Year 4. We would expect a student learning a new language and continuing their study until Year 4 to graduate with a B2 CEFR level of proficiency in that language.
Specialist pathways – choose a specialist pathway that you will follow throughout your course. Pick from:
- Business – this pathway gives you the option to either gain a broad knowledge of business or to focus specifically on Human Resource Management, Business Management, Marketing, or Accounting and Finance
- Education
- International Relations & Politics
- Media & Culture
- Publishing.
In Years 1, 2 and 4 you will take relevant modules in your chosen specialism. You will also be expected to take a placement in Year 3 which will make use of your specialism.
Year abroad
In Year 3 you will gain significant work experience, the cultural awareness that comes with living in another country, and the language fluency to succeed in a multinational workplace by completing a placement abroad.
You can choose how you'd like to spend your year. You can either:
- Complete a work placement of between 24 weeks and a year in a country in which your primary foreign language is spoken. Students studying English as a foreign language can choose to remain in the UK.
- Combine work experience and further language study by completing a work placement of at least 12 weeks in a country in which your primary foreign language is spoken, and spending 12 weeks studying at a partner university abroad to improve your proficiency in your secondary language.
For example, someone studying French and Japanese with a Business specialism could either spend between 24 weeks and a year working in a business context in France; or spend 12 weeks working in France, and 12 weeks studying in a partner university in Japan.
The year abroad component in this programme is compulsory, with a reduced tuition fee paid to Oxford Brookes. Living costs are to paid by the student, and students are responsible for their own accommodation and travel. Living costs will vary depending on the location of your placement.
You will be supported throughout by the placements and partnerships team, and assistance is also provided in finding and securing grants, such as Santander and Erasmus.
Module diagrams »
Study modules
As courses are reviewed regularly as part of our quality assurance framework, the module list you choose from may vary from that shown here.
Your module options will depend on the languages, level of proficiency, and specialist pathway that you choose at enrolment. If you would like to discuss your module options in more depth or are unable to attend an undergraduate open day, please contact Catherine Harris, programme administrator for Applied Languages, on charris@brookes.ac.uk or call +44 1865 443748.
Work placements
All Applied Languages students will complete a work placement in Year 3. Previous language students have undertaken work experience in a range of large organisations including:
- Air France
- Alcatel-Lucent (telecommunications)
- Go Fluent (a language school for professionals)
- KCD (public relations for the fashion industry)
- Christie's (auction house).
You will be guided and supported in helping to find your own work placement which combines your language skills with your specialist pathway. You are likely to be interviewed to secure your work placement role. For this, our careers centre can give you guidance on interview techniques.
Free language courses for students - the Open Module
Free language courses are available to full-time undergraduate and postgraduate students on many of our courses, and can be taken as a credit on some courses.
Please note that the free language courses are not available if you are:
- studying at a Brookes partner college
- studying on any of our teacher education courses or postgraduate education courses.
Programme changes
On rare occasions we may need to make changes to our course programmes after they have been published
on the website. For more information, please visit our
Changes to programmes
page.