2024 Autumn Term Week 8

In my 12 years of teaching Chinese at LSE, one student, Ellie, made a particular impression on me. I still fondly remember Ellie – a keen swimmer from France with curly hair, despite her studying Chinese with me a decade ago. What she impressed me with was not perfect pronunciation and tones, photographic memory recalling Chinese characters, or insightful essays, but her sheer positive attitude when it came to her Chinese learning. She was never bothered by the marks, often not first-class. Instead, she smiled a lot when I pointed out her mistakes, and joyfully carried on learning. The ‘lower’ marks never seemed to sink her spirit. She left LSE with a good mark and continued to navigate the world with her positive attitude.

What makes Ellie stand out in my memory is that I have also seen many cases of the opposite – students who are trying so hard to get a First to the extent of forgetting the joy of learning, even becoming self-doubting. I understand the increasing weight attached to the marks -- for obtaining an internship, for landing a promising job, and for securing a prestigious scholarship… And yet, I still think that finding joy in learning a language is the key to sustaining your motivation and helping you becoming a truly ‘successful’ language user. Numerous research shows that intrinsic motivation, such as personal interest and joy, leads to long-term success, and all extrinsic motivation, such as obtaining external approval/praise, burns out soon. These findings are in line with my years of observation in teaching. Dear student, when you feel you ‘failed’ in a CA or exam, worrying that your whole future is in jeopardy… Press the pause button. Stop comparing yourself with your peers; just focus on yourself, and on your own growth, on one tiny aspect you can improve, and take in the joy this tiny growth brought to you. Gradually, these little joys will become the ongoing strength inside you.

Dr Lijing Shi
Assistant Language Co-ordinator (Mandarin), LSE Language Centre

In this edition the spotlight is on Maggie, Staff and Student Relations Administrator. Maggie can be found in the Original Huddle – drop by and say hello!

What’s your favourite part of London?

Anywhere by the river at any time of the year, from the Thames Barrier in the east all along to where I live now near Richmond in the West, there is always something to see, somewhere to run/walk/cycle and people to watch.

What’s your favourite spot on campus?

Rooftop of CKK on a sunny day, usually very quiet (the secret is out now though!) and a great skyline to see which seems to change year on year

What is the most useful advice you can give to a new student?

Come to the Huddle (Language Centre students only though) - it is the best place to meet fellow students and us staff, study, chill, chat, get help, eat and maybe even take a nap. There is nowhere on campus like it.

What is the best thing about your job?

The people - staff and students - I have quite possibly the best job at LSE - I get paid to talk to people and organise social events (well there is a bit more to it but let's focus on the good stuff!)

How do you relax at the weekend?

I love to run so that will feature somehow, Parkrun is a staple on a Saturday morning. Then usually eating/drinking somewhere new - never go back to the same place as London has so many good pubs/bars/restaurants. A bit of gardening may happen but otherwise weekends are a time to down tools as much as possible.

Do you prefer the sea or the mountains?

Mountains probably - year round options with skiing in winter and walks in summer. I am never going to be a cold water swimmer and don't sit down much so lying on a beach doesn't hold much interest for me.

What’s your favourite season and why?

I have really enjoyed autumn this year, dry weather and the colours of the leaves have been spectacular. On the whole though I need warmth so summer.

What was the last book you read?

Small Acts of Kindness by Caroline Day. I am on to my next book now so have already forgotten what it was about.

Interesting snippet about Maggie: She recently ran the New York marathon!

Please make sure to check your Hub calendar, events for you should be listed!

LSE Language Community Get together
Wednesday 20/11/2024, 2-3pm, KSW.G.01
All LSE students

LSE Careers Drop-in appointments
Monday 18/11/2024 2-5pm, The Little Huddle
Mon 2/12/2024 2-5pm, The Little Huddle
All Language Centre students on campus

Festive Friday Pizza
Friday 13/12/2024 from 4-6pm, The Huddle
All Language Centre students on campus (including General Course)

Burns Night
24/1/2025, 6-9pm, SDR
All Language Centre students on campus (including General Course)

You may recognise some of your fellow students in LSESU Drama Society's upcoming production of 'Romeo and Juliet'. They are performing in the Venue (basement of the Saw Swee Hock) on 18, 19, 21 and 22 of November at 7pm and would love to have your support!

Tickets can be found here: https://lsesu.native.fm/event/romeo-and-juliet/236415

They are £6 for Drama Society members, £8 for LSE students, and £11 for the public.

Recently, I asked my Advanced Chinese students to record their presentation using Zoom. One student skilfully used the tool and a real-time transcript automatically appeared when we watched his recording. There were mistakes in the transcript due to the student’s mispronunciations and intonation imperfections which are natural and common (not a big deal!). In this case, voice-to-text recognition technology is a much pickier examiner, ‘accurately’ recording and displaying all the sounds it picks up. However, rather than seeing this as a painful/humiliating record of someone’s mistakes or linguistic incompetence, we can turn this feature into a self-improving strategy.

I advised the student to download the transcript from Zoom and compare it to the original script he prepared before the presentation recording. In this way, he can clearly see what phrases he pronounced less ideally, and which part of the sentence he could re-work for intonation. He could even use this idea to prepare for future presentations: write a script, practise, record speech via Zoom (or other similar tools), download the script from Zoom, compare and highlight the differences in the two scripts, and then practise the words and sentence parts with the help of a language buddy or other digital tools. In this way, he will surely do better in the next presentation in terms of pronunciation.

It’s no longer a secret that many AI tools can generate video and audio files in less than a minute, if you don’t care about the quality and ethics. If those tools are just used for cheating the system, or at the end of day, yourself, it’s a great pity. Instead, try to be critical and creative when considering the use of these tools. Is it replacing your ability, or is it empowering your ability? Be smart with those tools.

Dr Lijing Shi
Assistant Language Co-ordinator (Mandarin), LSE Language Centre

Have you joined the LSE Language Community yet? This month we have a Language Community Get together. It is a chance to meet and mingle with other students interested in languages – you may even find a language partner that you can meet up with on a regular basis to practise your languages. The Get Together is on Wednesday, 20 November, from 2-3pm, in Room KSW.G.01 – just across the way from the Huddle – so do join us!

The Language Community is all about practising your languages in an informal setting outside the classroom – we have sessions led by volunteer students, including some of our own BSc students!

We offer the following:

• Conversation Circles - small discussion groups
• Bitesize Speaking - 1-2-1 slots
• Improvisation - highly interactive sessions to improve fluency
• Tandem Learning - find a language buddy

To sign up please go to the LSE Language Community on Moodle.

We love hearing from our students abroad – why not send us your news? This could be in written form or images/videos – perhaps about the city you are living in, the University campus, group photos of you and your fellow students or your weekend trips/travels. We will post these on Instagram so your fellow students, as well as prospective students, can see what life on a year abroad is like.

There is so much happening around LSE, if you want to look up what is available try this very handy section of the LSE Website: Menu of Opportunities.

Do follow us on Instagram via lselanguages as we post after most of our events and have updates from our students on their year abroad.

Be sure to follow the Language Centre on the Student Hub (we have a general page and a page for each year group).

If you have not done so, download the Student Hub and follow the Language Centre channel, as well as your group, Language Centre BSc students 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24 or 2024/25.