English & Modern Languages (French, German, Portuguese or Spanish) with a year abroad BA

Overview

Study English and Modern Languages in the heart of London.

You'll be able to read a range of English literature from medieval literature to modern poetry and women’s writing, using contemporary literary theory and historical perspectives.

In the modern languages part of your degree, you can choose to study either French, German, Portuguese or Spanish. The language modules support all levels of language competence and conform to the internationally recognised Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). You will attain a high level of proficiency in speaking, writing and reading the language of your degree, whilst developing your knowledge and critical understanding of its culture and society. Our cultural curriculum is innovative and diverse, covering a range of modules in literature, culture, film studies and history, from the medieval period to the contemporary.

Students can take this course either with an A-level (or equivalent) in the degree language, or as a beginner, following a specially- designed ab initio language course.

English

One of the oldest English departments in the country, with an international reputation for the quality of its teaching and research.
Personal attention given to each student, creating a vibrant intellectual atmosphere and a network of support.
Offers a wide range of modules, and diverse approaches.
Central location offers access to Shakespeare’s Globe, the British Library, and countless other sites and buildings with literary associations.
Graduates develop transferable analytical and communications skills making them highly desirable to employers across a range of sectors.

Modern Languages

French, German and Spanish have been taught at King’s since 1831 and Portuguese since the 1860s, making us one of the oldest modern languages programmes in the country.
Our language departments are consistently voted among the best in the UK and offer our graduates excellent career prospects.
Broad range of specialist modules in French, German, Portuguese and Hispanic Studies, from medieval to contemporary literature as well as politics, history, cultural studies, and film.
You can study French, German, Spanish or Portuguese language either post A-level (or equivalent) or with no previous knowledge of the language (ab initio).
Based in the heart of London, King’s location offers access to a variety of galleries, theatres, specialist libraries and resources, including the Goethe-Institut and Austrian Cultural Forum., the Institut Français, Canning House, Camoes Centre for Portuguese Language and Culture, and the Instituto Cervantes, as well as events organised by embassies and other related cultural institutions.
The Year abroad in a French, German, Portuguese or Spanish-speaking country offers the opportunity to immerse yourself in culture and society and attain language fluency. We have exchanges with several partner universities in Europe, as well as North and South America.
Personal attention is given to each student, creating an intellectually stimulating and warm environment that is reflected in consistently excellent student satisfaction ratings.

Key information

UCAS code R904

Duration 4 years

Study mode Full-time

Course type Joint honours

Further details

Department Department of English Department of French Department of German Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies

Locations

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Course detail

Description

Teaching

Modules are taught by leading academics through a combination of lectures, small seminars or tutorials, and expert one-to-one supervision. Language classes involve in-depth work with different kinds of media, literary and academic texts. Teaching is in both English and the language studied, according to the subject area. Our teaching style is interactive; you will participate informally in small group discussions, in seminars or online discussion platforms, and formally through seminar presentations and oral assessments.

Typically, one credit equates to 10 hours of work.

Assessment

You will encounter a variety of methods of summative (for credit) assessments during your studies, including coursework & assessed essays; language assignments (written, oral, aural); individual or group-based presentations; year abroad project work; examinations; and dissertation. You will also have a variety of formative assessments (not for credit) throughout your programme. The feedback you receive will be key to provide guidance and inform the assignments you go on to do subsequently. Coursework contributes approximately 50% and examinations approximately 50% to your final mark, although the percentages will depend on your module choices.

Location

This course is taught on our King’s College London Strand Campus, located in the heart of London.

Our Modern Language Departments can draw on unparalleled print, audio-visual and online resources, including the King’s Maughan Library and Senate House Library, the Institute of Modern Languages Research, the British Film Institute and the British Library. All are within easy walking distance of the Strand Building. The Goethe-Institut, Austrian Cultural Forum, Institut français, Camoes Centre , Instituto Cervantes and Canning House also have extensive media and library holdings, and run lively courses including films, readings, seminars and exhibitions which complement our Departments’ internal film screenings, open seminars, exhibitions, and annual departmental play.

London is also a city of music and arts. You will have easy access to London’s endless live music performances at the South Bank arts complex, at the Barbican Centre, at London opera houses. West End Theatres, Cinemas, Art Galleries are all a short walk away.

Structure

Year 1

Required Modules

ENGLISH

Introducing Literary Theories (15 credits)
Reading Poetry (15 credits)

MODERN LANGUAGES

Cultural Transformations: An Introduction to Modern Languages (15 credits)

French pathway

Post-A Level French

French Core Language (First Year) (30 credits)
Critical Reading and its Pleasures: Approaching French Literature and Film (15 credits)

Ab initio French

Introductory French (30 credits)
Critical Reading and its Pleasures: Approaching French Literature and Film for ab initio (15 credits)

German pathway

Non-native German speakers

German Language and Culture I (30 credits)
Texts and Contexts (15 credits)

Native German speakers

Translation from and into German (15 credits)
Texts and Contexts (15 credits)

Ab initio German students

Introductory German (30 credits)
Texts and Contexts for ab initio (15 credits)

Portuguese pathway

Post-A Level Portuguese

Portuguese Language 1A (30 credits)
Global Iberias: Perspectives - Introduction to the Spanish and Portuguese Speaking Worlds (15 credits)

Ab initio Portuguese

Introductory Portuguese (30 credits)
Global Iberias: Perspectives - Introduction to the Spanish and Portuguese Speaking Worlds (15 credits)

Spanish pathway

Post-A Level Spanish

Spanish Language I (30 credits)
Global Iberias: Perspectives - An Introduction to the Spanish and Portuguese Speaking Worlds (15 credits)

Ab initio Spanish

Introductory Spanish (30 credits)
Global Iberias: Perspectives - An Introduction to the Spanish and Portuguese Speaking Worlds (15 credits)

Optional Modules

ENGLISH

You will select a further one module in the English Department from a range that may typically include:

Classical and Biblical Contexts of English Literature (15 credits)
Medieval Literary Culture (15 credits)
Early Modern Literary Culture (15 credits)

You will then select one further module from a range of optional modules in the English Department that may typically include:

Classical and Biblical Contexts of English Literature (15 credits)
Medieval Literary Culture (15 credits)
Early Modern Literary Culture (15 credits)
The Grotesque from Dickens to Dahl (15 credits)
Writing Race, Writing Gender (15 credits)
A Book (15 credits)

MODERN LANGUAGES

Native German speakers only

You will select a further module in the German Department from a range of optional modules that may typically include:

Medieval Germany: Language, Literature & Society (15 credits)
Milestones of German History (15 credits)
One Hundred and Twenty Years of German Cinema (15 credits)
An Introduction to German Politics (15 credits)

Year 2

Required Modules

French pathway

Post-A Level French

Core Language (Second Year) (15 credits)
The Practice of Translation (15 credits)

Ab initio French

Intermediate French (30 credits)

German pathway

Non-native German speakers

German Language and Culture II (15 credits)
Translation from and into German II (15 credits)

Native German speakers

Translation from and into German II (15 credits)

Ab initio German students

Intermediate German (30 credits)

Portuguese pathway

Post-A Level Portuguese

Portuguese Language 2 (30 credits)

Ab initio Portuguese

Intermediate Portuguese (30 credits)

Spanish pathway

Post-A Level Spanish

Spanish Language 2 (30 credits)

Ab initio Spanish

Intermediate Spanish (30 credits)

Optional Modules

ENGLISH

You will select two English Department modules in literatures pre-1800 from a range of optional modules that may typically include:

A Mad World, My Masters: Performing Culture in Jacobean England (15 credits)
Comedy and Identity (15 credits)
Cultural Encounters: Literature and Language in the Anglo-Saxon Period (15 credits)
Early American Literature (15 credits)
Family, Authorship and Romanticism (15 Credits)
The Film of the Play (15 credits)
History, Politics and the Elizabethan Imagination (15 credits)
Introduction to Eighteenth-Century Literature: Gothic (15 credits)
Language on the Edge (15 credits)
London Literature 1380-1450 (15 credits)
Medieval Science Fiction (15 credits)
Performance in Medieval Culture (15 credits)
The Poetry of Revolution (15 credits)
The Rise of the Novel (15 Credits)
Renaissance Wordplay (15 credits)
Subjects of Desire in Medieval Literature (15 credits)
Unlocking Early Modern Letters (15 credits)

You will select two further English Department modules in literatures post-1800 from a range of optional modules that may typically include:

American Popular Culture (15 credits)
Australian Literature and Film (15 credits)
The Colonial Novel and British India (15 credits)
Contemporary Global Novels (15 credits)
Creative Non-Fiction (Creative Writing) (15 credits)
Experimental Theatre (15 credits)
Fin de Siècle (15 credits)
Forms of Engagement: Poetic Learning and Poetic Making
Gender and Performance (15 credits)
Mapping Modernism (15 credits)
The Mind of the Novel (15 credits)
Modern Poetry and the Place of Writing (15 credits)
Modern Theatre (15 credits)
Moments of Culture (15 credits)
Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture (15 credits)
Post/colonial Pirates (15 credits)
Prose Fiction (Creative Writing) (15 credits)
Shocks of the New (15 credits)
Theatre Capital (15 credits)
Theory, Culture and Politics After the 1960s (15 credits)
US Slavery and the Literary Imagination (15 credits)
Twentieth-Century American Fiction (15 credits)
Victorians and Social Change (15 credits)
Writing Africa (15 credits)

MODERN LANGUAGES

French pathway

You take 30 credits from a range of optional French Department modules that may typically include:

The Idea of France (15 credits)
Death & Desire: Love in French literature before 1700 (15 credits)
Obscenity and Civility in Pre- and Early-Modern French Literature (15 credits)
Modern French History (15 credits)
The French Novel after 1700 (15 credits)
French Poetry after 1800 (15 credits
Writing the Self in French Literature since 1700 (15 credits)
Marketing the Margins: Case Studies in the Literary Marketplace (15 credits)
Modernity and the City (15 credits)
French Political Thought II (15 credits)
French Cinema and its Others (15 credits)

German pathway

You are required to take at least one German Department module with pre-modern content from a range, that may typically include:

Gender and Identity in Arthurian Romance (15 credits)
The German Reformation (15 credits)
18^th-Century German Thought (15 credits)

You will then select further German Department modules to bring your total German credits to 60 for the year from a range of optional modules that may typically include:

The pre-modern modules listed above
Politics and Culture in Cold War Germany since 1870 (15 credits)
The Weimar Republic: Culture and Crisis (15 credits)
A Year in the Life of German-Language Film (15 credits)
Marketing the Margins: Case Studies in the Literary Marketplace (15 credits)
Talking Back: Voices of Protest in German Culture (15 credits)
Society, Politics and Popular Culture in Germany since 1870 (15 credits)
Berlin Past and Present: The Reconstruction of a Capital City (15 credits)

Portuguese pathway

You take 30 credits of Portuguese optional modules in the Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies from a range that may typically include:

Nineteenth Century Fiction in Brazil and Portugal (15 credits)
Visuality, Literature and Modern Life in Latin America (15 credits)
Fatherlands: Spain and Portugal under the Dictators (15 credits)
Imperial Visions in Iberian Literature (15 credits)
Introduction to the Study of Language with Special Reference to Spanish and Portuguese (15 credits)

Spanish pathway

You take 30 credits of Spanish optional modules in the Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies from a range that may typically include:

Memory in Modern Spanish Culture (15 credits)
Language Acts and Worldmaking in Medieval and Early Modern Spain (15 credits)
Introduction to the Study of Language with Special Reference to Spanish and Portuguese (15 credits)
Imperial Visions in Iberian Literature (15 credits)
Marketing the Margins: Case Studies in the Literary Marketplace (15 credits)
The Study of Gender in Spanish American Literature and Culture (15 credits)
Visuality, Literature and Modern Life in Latin America (15 credits)
Fatherlands: Spain and Portugal under the Dictators (15 credits)
Catalan Language & Culture (15 credits)

Year 3

Assessment for this year will depend on whether you choose to split the year between two countries, or spend the entire year in one. It will also depend on how you opt to spend your year: as an exchange student at a university, a language assistant teaching English, or on an approved work placement.

Partner Institutions for the French pathway currently include:

Université Lumière Lyon II
Université Paris-Sorbonne
Université Paris-Nanterre
Aix-Marseille Université
Université des Antilles et de la Guyane (Martinique)
École Normale Supérieure (Paris)
École Normale Supérieure (Lyon)
Sciences Po (Paris)
Sciences Po (Lyon)
Université de Montréal
Université Laval
Université de Strasbourg

Partners for the German pathway currently include:

Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität , Frankfurt am Main
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munchen
Universität Wien
Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg
Universität Mannheim

Partners for the Portuguese pathway currently include:

Universidade de Lisboa - Portugal
Universidade Nova de Lisboa - Portugal
Universidade de Coimbra - Portugal
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais - Brazil
Universidade Federal da Bahia - Brazil
Universidade de São Paulo - Brazil
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro - Brazil

Partners for the Spanish pathway currently include:

Universidad de Alicante - Spain
Universidad de Cádiz - Spain
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid - Spain
Universidad de Córdoba - Spain
Universidad del País Vasco - Spain
Universitat Pompeu Fabra – Spain
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (Lugo Campus) – Spain
Universidad de Salamanca - Spain
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC) - Chile
Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (TEC), Campus Querétaro - Mexico
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) - Mexico
Universidad del Pacífico – Peru
Universidad San Francisco de Quito – Ecuador

Required Modules

Optional Modules

Year 4

Required Modules

MODERN LANGUAGES

French pathway

French Language (15 credits)

German pathway

Non-native German speakers

German Language and Culture III (15 credits)
Translation from and into German III (15 credits)

Native German speakers

Translation from and into German III (15 credits)

Portuguese pathway

Portuguese Language 4 (30 credits)

Spanish pathway

Spanish Language 4 (30 credits)

Optional Modules

ENGLISH

You will select 60 credits of English Department optional modules from a range that may typically include:

Activist Texts: Literature and Politics, 1910-1938 (15 credits)
Alternative Americas: The Other Nineteenth Century (15 credits)
Austen in Context (15 credits)
Autobiography (15 credits)
Beowulf (15 credits)
Chaucer’s Books (15 credits)
Critically Queer (15 credits)
Figurations of Conspiracy (15 credits)
Gender, Culture and Power at the Court of Elizabeth I (15 credits)
Identity in Contemporary Britain (15 credits)
Imagining Britain: Medieval Places, Journeys, Maps (15 credits)
James Joyce and Ulysses (15 credits)
Late Shakespeare (15 credits)
Literature and Media (15 credits)
The Life of the Sonnet (15 credits)
Multi-Ethnic American Modernisms (15 credits)
Performance Philosophy (15 credits)
Romantic Lyric, Philosophy and The Senses (15 credits)
Shakespeare’s London (15 credits)
Science, Nature and Performance (15 credits)
Testimony: The Holocaust and Rwanda (15 credits)
Vernacular Theory (15 credits)
Virginia Woolf and the Politics of Reading (15 credits)

MODERN LANGUAGES

French pathway

You take 45 credits of French Department optional modules from a range that may typically include:

Old French Romance (15 credits)
Sixteenth-century Encounters with the ‘New World’ (15 credits)
Shadows of Enlightenment (15 credits)
Citizenship and Exclusion: Republicanism and its Discontents (15 credits)
French Anticolonial Thought (15 credits)
Enquiring Minds: Murder Mysteries in French Literature from Realism to Post-Modernism (15 credits)
Politics and the Moving Image in post-1968 France (15 credits)
Comparing Romance Languages (Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies) (15 credits)
Recent French Thought (15 credits)
Contemporary Women’s Writing in France (15 credits)
Images of Algeria (15 credits)
Québeçois Fiction & Film across the Canadian Bicultural Divide (15 credits)
Maximising Performance: Brecht, Boal and Big Business (15 credits)
The French Revolution Effect: Italy, France, Germany (Department of Comparative Literature) (15 credits)

German pathway

You take further German Department modules to bring your total German credits to 60 for the year from a range that may typically include:

Dissertation (15 credits)
Goethe’s Poems (15 credits)
Religion, Sex and Politics: German Literature of the 16^th and 17^th Centuries (15 credits)
Death & the Afterlife in Medieval & Modern German Literature (15 credits)
Women’s Writing: Then and Now (15 credits)
The pre-modern modules listed above
Dissertation (15 credits)
Aspects of Post-1945 German Culture (15 credits)
Afro-German Moving Images: Postcolonial Perspectives on German-Language Film (15 credits)
Contemporary German Politics (15 credits)
Writings in Tongues: Literature and Migration in the Modern German Context (15 credits)
Germany in Motion: Migration, Integration and Political Transformation 1945-2015 (15 credits)
Maximising Performance: Brecht, Boal and Big Business (15 credits)

Portuguese pathway

You take 30 credits of optional Portuguese modules in the Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies from a range that may typically include:

Brazilian Poetry and Song: 1958 to the present (15 credits)
Topics in Afro-Brazilian Culture (15 credits)
Cross-Cultural Exchanges between Africa and the Americas, 16th-20th Centuries (15 credits)
Comparing Romance Languages: Historical Evolution and Linguistic Interference (15 credits)
Peripheral Europeans: Modernity, Traditionalism and National Identity (15 credits)
Maximising Performance: Brecht, Boal and Big Business (15 credits)
EU and Southern Europe: Spain, Portugal, Greece (15 credits)
Composition in Portuguese (15 credits)
Dissertation (15 credits)

Spanish pathway

You take 30 credits of Spanish optional modules in the Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies from a range that may typically include:

Advanced Topics in Applied Linguistics (15 credits)
Myth & Archive: 19th & 20th Century Rewritings on Colonial Latin America (15 credits)
Images of Spain: Stereotypes in Spanish Cinema (15 credits)
The Writer and the Public: Journalism in Spain (15 credits)
Key Terms and Points of View in Latin American Visual Arts (15 credits)
Cross-Cultural Exchanges between Africa and the Americas, 16th-20th Centuries (15 credits)
History & Imagination in 19th Century Spanish Narrative (15 credits)
Comparing Romance Languages: Historical Evolution and Linguistic Interference (15 credits)
Sefarad: The Jews of Medieval Spain in Literary History and Cultural Memory (15 credits)
Catalan Culture (15 credits)
Advanced Catalan Language (15 credits)
EU and Southern Europe: Spain, Portugal, Greece (15 credits)
Dissertation (15 credits)

Entry requirements

Required subjects

English Literature, or combined English Language and Literature.

A level in French, German, Spanish or Portuguese at grade B or equivalent is required if you plan to take the language at Advanced level. The ab initio pathway allows students to start studying one of these languages from scratch.

Further information and other requirements

Entry requirements
A-Level	AAB	Please note that A-level General Studies, Critical Thinking, Thinking Skills and Global Perspectives are not accepted by King's as one of your A levels. However, if offered the grade achieved may be taken into account when considering whether or not to accept a candidate who has just fallen short of the conditions of their offer.
Access to HE Diploma	D: 33 credits M: 12 credits P: 0 credits	Access to HE Diploma with 45 Level 3 credits: 33 must be from units awarded at Distinction, with the remaining Level 3 credits at Merit. Level 3 study must focus on English Literature. Preferred other subjects: Literature and another arts subject at Level 3.
Cambridge Pre-U	D3 D3 M2	Three Pre-U Principal subjects at D3 D3 M2.
BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma (QCF from 2010)		DDM with eleven Distinctions and two A levels at grades AB
BTEC Level 3 Diploma (QCF from 2010)		DM with six Distinctions and two A levels at grades AB
BTEC Level 3 Subsidiary Diploma (QCF from 2010)		D with four modules at Distinction and two A levels at grades AB
Scottish Highers & Advanced Highers	AAB at Highers and AB at Advanced Highers	AAB at Higher in one sitting and AB at Advanced Higher (we do not count the Higher and Advanced Higher in the same subject).
International Baccalaureate	35 points	Pass the IB Diploma with a total of at least 35 points, with three Higher Level subjects at 665
Other International Qualifications		Visit our admissions webpages to view our international entry requirements.
English Language requirements	Band B	Visit our admissions webpages to view our English language entry requirements .

Selection procedure

Application deadline: January 15th 2020

Help and support

View our English language entry requirements

If you don't have a suitable qualification for direct entry to a UK university, or if English isn't your first language, our academic preparation courses can help you get ready for study in the UK.

Preparation courses

Fees and funding

Full time tuition fees UK:

The UK tuition fee for the 2020-2021 academic year is currently £9,250 per year. This is based on the UK Government’s cap.

Full time tuition fees EU:

Students starting their programme in 2020/21 (September 2020) who are eligible to pay EU fees will pay the same rate of tuition fees as UK students. This will apply for the duration of their programme, but may be subject to change by the UK Government for subsequent cohorts from 2021/22.

The UK tuition fee for the 2020-2021 academic year is currently £9,250 per year. This is based on the UK Government’s cap.

Full time tuition fees International:

The International tuition fee for the 2020-2021 academic year is £19,800 per year.

Financial help and support

Visit the fees and funding webpages to find out more about bursaries, scholarships, grants, tuition fees, living expenses, student loans and other financial help available at King's.

Career prospects

By encouraging critical reflection on both the past and the present contexts of the French, German, Portuguese or Spanish -speaking worlds, the programme broadens students’ knowledge base and strengthens their interdisciplinary profile, challenging narrow, monocultural assumptions, thus preparing students for the challenges of multicultural and global realities.

Studies of graduate employability repeatedly stress the career value of language degrees, which provide graduates with international experience and enhancing cultural awareness, helping them to develop flexibility, resilience and resourcefulness. Employers value foreign language ability, not just as a specialist skill, but as a personal quality that develops relationship-building, teamwork, and the capacity to move easily in international contexts. Typical destinations of KCL Modern Languages graduates include international business, the press and media, IT and technology, marketing and public relations, public administration, international development, law, finance, teaching and lecturing, interpreting, translating and others.

Testimonials

Rodolphe

I chose King's College London because I wanted to study at a top university. It offers a world-class education as you are taught by renowned teachers in fantastic facilities and this explains its international reputation.