As a language student you will be allocated to a stage of language proficiency in our unique system of seven language levels. This is designed to place you at the stage most appropriate to develop your spoken and written skills in Spanish, enabling you to make rapid progress. In all years of study you will benefit from our wide range of resources. You will use the excellent facilities in the Centre for Language Study and in our Spanish Resources Room, including extensive multimedia facilities and online resources. In your first and second years, you will take a range of modules in Spanish, including some linguistics modules specific to Spanish, but you will also be able to choose to pursue the areas of linguistics that interest you most in a range of modules that are not specific to the study of a particular language. These include introductions to the areas of psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, multilingualism, syntax, discourse analysis, and phonetics. The third year is spent in a Spanish-speaking country which offers you a unique opportunity to enhance your linguistic and cultural proficiency. You can spend your year abroad as an English language assistant in a school, studying at one of our partner universities or on a work placement. Most students of Spanish go to Spain, but many choose to spend a year in Latin America. Our current Spanish-speaking ERASMUS partners are Barcelona, Granada, Alcala de Henares, Madrid, Malaga, Castellón and Salamanca. We also have links with several Latin American Universities (including in Brazil, for students of Portuguese). The final year also leaves you with a range of module options in Spanish and linguistics, taking into full account that you may wish to specialise in an area that most suits your interests and combines well with what you have studied so far. You will be able to pursue your interests in linguistics to an advanced level, choosing from a range of modules that are closely related to the research expertise of current staff members. You will also have the opportunity to prepare a final year dissertation as a double module, under the guidance of an appropriate supervisor.