We interviewed Anthony, the president of our wonderful Languages Society, to find out what it’s like being part of a society and how it can impact your university life.
Can you give a brief overview of your society and what's it’s been doing so far this year?
We are the UWS Languages Society and we're a space for people who want to practice and learn languages at the university. If anyone's interested in a language that’s quite popular, like French or English, they can come and practice with us what they have been learning recently, just to get that confidence of speaking and in a space where you don't feel rushed or judged for your speaking ability.
This is also for if you're speaking a niche language, or one that doesn't have many speakers, like Gaelic. We provide a space with free food, free snacks and we also help organise everything in the room. Just turn up and share with us and make friends with everyone else. It's been interesting as I personally didn't think that there would be many people interested in learning languages.
I was learning French and I was good at reading and writing it but I couldn't speak it, because I never got the opportunity to speak with someone who listens but will not judge me for my French accent and who also gives me the time to allow my brain to process. Being that I'm learning a language, it takes my brain a lot longer to process a simple sentence like “I love you”, and other phrases like that.
With this I realised I needed to create a space so people can come and not feel judged with the same opportunities as everyone else. Most of the times when you're learning a new language, you don't have the funding or the finances or the opportunity and the time to go to a country that speaks that language in a formal way in daily life. Often what I try to do is to try and immerse myself in the cultural aspects as much as I can without going to the country, maybe music, films, TV. But that does not replace the exchange of speaking to another person, listening to them, at least looking at their reactions and being able to express yourself in a way communicating. You can't get that from watching a TV show.
What has been the main success of your society so far?
We were able to get some members! So that was a big success. Coming into the second semester, we attended the fairs and got a lot of support from the Students’ Union with preparing materials, printing, staff help and promotion. We were there talking to people, encouraging them to come to our meetings.
We hold weekly meetings and we also hold a monthly special occasion. This is when we go out, maybe to watch a movie, or go to a cultural exchange event, or we might have like a game’s night and it’s all around maybe language themed or culturally themed. We get a lot of international students. There's a lot of cultural exchange. You get people from India, Greece and lots of other countries. We really have a very diverse cohort of members who come to us.
I think what's good about us is we don't force people to commit to attending every week, because learning a language is always already hard. If a member can't come because they're busy with anything, you know, work, care, responsibilities, we'll just say if you can come next time, we’ll still be here. We’re always here. So that's really what I like about our society and we encourage people to express themselves.
When we start, we'll always start with a welcome activity and then we ask people if they've encountered any language in their daily life or maybe they found a colleague that speaks the language they're trying to learn and they had a little moment of sharing. I think some of our members were learning Russian and they found someone who's Russian speaking in the society.
What has been the biggest challenge that the society has faced so far?
When we started in September 2025, we struggled to get going with booking rooms and organising our events. One time we were locked out of the building. It's been tough to get going and at the same time balancing our academic work. It's difficult to manage your time to prepare for the society. People arrive in the spaces when we are already set up, and they just enjoy the atmosphere, whereas for us we have to work in the background, book rooms, get snacks, create materials, get creative, think about how to engage people. And that's really been our first challenge in the first semester.
I think some of the challenges we have is really running the weekly activities for the society, creating promotional content and media for the society. Maybe even looking at how particular things are done, say for example the feedback after the event, seeing how the event went and what people would like for us to do for them. That's been a challenge for us.
We’re trying to encourage our members to do as much as they can to help. Even if you just want to post a feedback loop for the society, or help pick up the snacks, the littlest of things because we're all volunteering together. So, I think looking forward, we're trying to get more members engaged with the society and help run the community.
What could the Students’ Union do to help better support the society?
I don't know, maybe more promotional help like putting some of our events on the display boards in the uni could be helpful. I've learned that I can email the student accommodation team and have them display our promotional content on their displays.
I have this vision of organizing days out. Not yet because we're still kind of settling into the routines and stuff we need to do. So maybe fundraising with the Union or seeing how much funding can be provided could help us towards the costs of the experience.
Do you have any other thoughts you would like to share or any upcoming plans for the society?
For the future of the society, I want more people to step up because I’ll be leaving in a year or so and I don't want the society to die with me. I think I’ll look to maybe get some new members, especially first years. I'm seeing if they're if they're keen to get stuck in, get involved.
As you can imagine, most of the overly loud culture about university is, you know, going out, drinking and getting smashed. We’re really not about that but I'm sure we can find something really engaging on social media to attract more people. We've done quite a lot. When we began, we didn't have a format. Right now, we have a template of something we can play around with. Something we can expand when people have more time and are keen to get stuck into like a two-hour event.
We have an Instagram page now so that’s a great improvement for us. I'm happy to say I didn’t have to do that myself. One of our members really helped us set that up so I'm really happy. We have gone from 2 people to 25. I’m really, really, really happy!
Why should new students join your society?
If you want to enhance your love for language, or are looking for a space to practice speaking, or if you have in mind that you want to be able to flex on people by speaking multiple languages, this is your space to come and do it. It’s a space where you won’t be judged for your accent and you can improve your English or any other language. This is the space for you to come out of your shell and feel like you belong at university and make friends with common interests!
A huge thank you to Anthony for giving us an amazing insight into the goings on within the UWS Language Society!
