Steve's sandbox

Tag: Scholarship

  • Josie Holley – Case Study, Geneva (Nov 2013 – May 2014)

    Alhambra

    My advice to anybody considering a bursary to travel abroad would be to grab the opportunity while you can!

    After having finished my degree in French and Spanish with Interpreting at the University of Sheffield, I knew where I wanted my career to go. Since the age of 16 I have wanted to be a conference interpreter. I took the entrance exams for the University of Geneva, and I was accepted. The only problem was that Geneva is not the cheapest city in the world, to use a good old British understatement.

    The money I received from the John Speak Trust enabled me not only to survive through my Master’s but also to grab as many experiences as I could firmly by the horns.

    Conference Interpreting is a career path which requires deep cultural understanding of the countries whose languages you study. Geneva being a French speaking city, the francophone side was already covered, but the money from the John Speak Trust also allowed me to travel to the south of Spain for two weeks during my Christmas holidays and to travel around Switzerland, both French and German speaking during Easter.

    As it currently stands, I have just passed my second semester and am gearing up to face my third and final semester here in Geneva. This bursary has enabled me to discover a city that I love, and one which I hope will be my home for a few years to come.

    My experience in Geneva has confirmed me as a citizen of the world, as Geneva serves as a cross roads for many languages, cultures and ideas thanks to its International Organisations, including the UN, which I have been lucky enough to work in as a volunteer over the past few weeks. I had already experienced life in a French speaking country through my Erasmus in Bordeaux, but Geneva offers a different, unique perspective, being a town that is French speaking only in name; I regularly hear French, English, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese and goodness knows how many other languages that I do not even recognise, and that is just on the tram!

    My advice to anybody considering a bursary to travel abroad would be to grab the opportunity while you can! It is a unique experience, and one which is not always easy, but it provides you with excellent skills for the jobs market, and more importantly broadens your personal horizons and opens doors that you never knew existed.

    The most important thing to do is to go native so to speak.

    Eat where the locals eat, drink what the locals drink, chill out where the locals chill out, and above all, make every effort to speak what the locals speak!

    Cordoba Skyline at Night

  • A final report to say “Muchas gracias y hasta luego” – by Hannah Phillips

    My John Speak scholarship took me the capital of Spain, Madrid, to support me as I took part in a year’s internship within the Spanish multinational company NH Hotels. After previously studying in the North of Spain for 5 months, my year working as a trainee Buyer within the International Purchasing Department of NH was about perfecting my use of the Spanish language and getting real experience in an International company.

    The John Speak scholarship was a huge part of my experience abroad, giving me the financial ability to be able to submerge myself in the Spanish way of life and also travel the country that I was lucky enough to be able to call home. My time and travels here has opened my eyes to the Spanish culture, something you don’t see through the text books at University, and has made me appreciate even more how useful a second language is and will be for my future career.

    I recently read a quote which really summarises how I feel about learning such an important second language such as Spanish and it says “The limits of your language are the limits of your world”. This is something I totally agree with and thanks to this year, and thanks to John Speak, my world has been opened to the 350 million people that speak Spanish as their native tongue in 21 countries over four continents.

    Once again, I would like to say a huge thank you to John Speak and everyone involved in the scheme for letting me have such a memorable experience in Spain. I thoroughly recommend to anyone who is in a similar position to me to also apply! The next stage involves me returning to the UK to finish my University degree and I will keep the trust updated as to where my future takes me!

    Thank you again,

    Hannah Phillips

  • Edward Mortimer – Final Case Study

    This young girl is being given some basic education along with about thirty of her peers. Classes took place once a week in the open air on a straw mat.

    My John Speak Scholarship took me to Pakistan for a period of ten months to perfect my command of the Urdu language; widely accepted as the lingua franca of the Indian Subcontinent, a rich blend of Persian, Arabic and Turkish vocabulary with a Hindi grammatical base. Much like the English we speak today it could be described as a ‘mongrel’ of a language, but what a playful, diverse and beautiful mongrel she is!

    Prior to my Scholarship I had been to Pakistan twice. During those short visits I had developed a keen interest in UK-Pakistan relations, and this was the initial impetus for learning the language. I was already an intermediate speaker, and my reading ability was well developed, but I simply could not express myself on the level that I wanted to. During my Scholarship, everything changed.
    I spent the majority of my scholarship teaching in a large school, and this was a fantastic experience that really stretched me. However it was living with a Pakistani family that was the true catalyst for my language development. I found myself in such a diverse range of situations, and had to call on every noun, verb and adjective available to me: From attending colourful engagement parties and making speeches to large groups of young children, to hospital visits and running errands.
    Possibly one of the most rewarding experiences during my Scholarship was participating in an education project in my spare time, which was run by the family I was living with. This involved working with the children from some extremely poor tribal communities, and being able to communicate love and encouragement to the children in a language they understood was an incredibly moving experience.

    I hasten to add that my time in Pakistan was not always easy. I had to jump through multiple hoops in order to obtain the correct visa, and I often got discouraged during the initial period when I found it difficult to express myself. In addition I developed some health problems about half-way through my Scholarship, on top of having to go 6 hours a day without electricity (a daily occurrence in Pakistan). Despite all of these challenges I was given fantastic support by the Trust from day one, I couldn’t have asked for more.
    Having previously interned at the British High Commission in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, I am champing at the bit to use my newfound language skills to further British interests in South Asia, economically, diplomatically and culturally. I’ll be keeping the Committee informed of my progress, and once again I’d like to express my gratitude to them for giving me this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

    Edward Mortimer – John Speak Scholar, Pakistan

     

    A wise man