2024 Winter Term Week 1

At the Language Centre we now have 57 students studying IR and Chinese and 67 students studying Language, Culture and Society. Most of our students are in London studying on campus but 34 are on their year abroad studying in destinations as far apart as Berlin, Shanghai, Riga, Valladolid and multiple parts of France namely: Le Havre, Menton, Poitiers, and Reims.

As well as the students on our degree programmes, the Language Centre is the ‘home department’ for five students doing the General Course, one of whom is taking part on a new programme for English Language Majors. And, we also have our first student from the University of Valladolid who is joining us as part of the Erasmus Reciprocal Exchange Programme.

All our students have an academic mentor, whose responsibility is to have an overview of your academic progress and general wellbeing. Your mentor can provide support and guidance on both academic and personal matters. They can (hopefully) answer your questions (or direct you to someone who can) and, if you are applying for jobs or further academic study, they can write references for you.

Speaking as part of the mentoring team, it’s a joy to get to know you and see you journey through the ups and occasional downs of your studies. And, in addition to 1-2-1s, if you have any suggestions for mentoring workshops, we’d love to hear them!

Please make sure to check your Hub calendar!

Careers Event: Careers for Language Students. 
Thursday 25/01/2024, 5-6pm, KSW.3.02 
Year 2 students

Burns Night. 
Friday 26/01/2024, 6-9pm, SDR 
All Language Centre students on campus (including General Course)

GO LSE: Preparation for Outward Study Abroad in China. 
Wednesday 31/01/2024, 3-5pm, The Chinese Embassy 
All students studying in China (Summer 2024 and 2024/25 Academic Year)

Drop-in appointments with Bryony (LSE Careers). 
Friday 02/02/2024, 3-5pm, 20KSW.G.08 (The Little Huddle) 
Language Centre students on campus

LSE Language Centre: Careers Event (Careers Planning and Self-understanding) 
Thursday 15/02/2024, 3-5pm, CBG.1.02 
Year 2 students

LSE Language Centre: Careers Event (IFS - How to source my internship) L
Thursday 07/03/2024, 5-6pm, CBG.1.02 
Year 2 students

Very loosely, words that might have come up over the Holidays. Enjoy!

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious: It’s hard not to start singing when you hear ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’, one of the longest words to have ever made it into the dictionary. It is a fun invention that first began to appear in the 1930s, and was then made very popular by the Disney film Mary Poppins in 1964. ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ is used to express excitement and approval, a little like ‘fabulous!’ or ‘fantastic!’ but with added zing. Even though the film’s song states that ‘the sound of it is really quite atrocious’, its bouncy, rhythmic sound is very hard to resist. So next time you are impressed or amazed by something, you know what to say!

A legendary Football (Soccer) match took place in Scotland on the evening of February 8, 2000, and this word was adapted for a newspaper headline to perfectly illustrate the result. The mighty Celtic played the ‘lowly’ Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Celtic lost 3 -1. The headline, “Super Caley go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious!”

Snaccident: A snaccident is the accidental eating of a lot of snacks when you meant to have just one.2 On the other hand, if you forget to eat, or avoid snaccidents altogether, you could end up hangry – irritable or angry because of hunger.

Scurryfunge: To scurryfunge is to rush around, trying to tidy up before guests arrive. Something you might have done over the Holidays!

Clinkabell: Along with ‘cocklebell’ and ‘conkerbell’, ‘clinkabell’ is an old word for icicle. Not to be confused with Tinkerbell. There, we are back with Disney (via J.M.Barrie) to tie this section up nicely!

Taken from the ‘Roots of Happiness: 100 words for joy and hope’ by Susie Dent. Puffin Books 2003 (page 85, 95, 96, 114).

New sessions for the Winter Term are now available to book.

If you would like to practice your languages in an informal setting, please go to the LSE Language Community on Moodle and sign up for:

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

Some of these sessions are led by our very own BSc students!

Get ready for Winter Term with activities for everyone in the LSE community. See the schedule of events and activities to help you settle back into life at LSE, prepare for Winter Term, and immerse yourself in opportunities across LSE.

We’ve built up quite a following via lselanguages.

Please do follow us and whilst studying abroad send us your pictures (to Language.Centre.Teaching.Learning@lse.ac.uk) so we can all see what you are up to!

Two important surveys will take places this term. Year 1, 2 and 3 students will receive information on the Undergraduate Survey (UGS) and Year 4 students on the National Student Survey (NSS). Please look out for your call-to-action to take part.

Thank you for reading. We cannot promise to publish everything we receive, but if you do have anything interesting to share please pass this on to me for a future edition.