Our BA Language and/with English with Foundation Year combines studying a modern language (French, German, Italian, Japanese or Spanish) and its associated culture with English literature. You will gain a thorough grounding in different areas of English literature and engage imaginatively in the reading and analysis of literary texts from all periods, from the Anglo-Saxon to the present day, and develop a critical approach, so that you can put your own and others' work in context. You will also have the opportunity to study a number of cross-cultural modules that will allow you to explore specific themes across a variety of language-speaking areas.

Before proceeding to the main degree, you will spend your Foundation Year preparing yourself for a degree in the arts by improving your study and research skills and gaining arts-related knowledge and understanding. You will also have the opportunity to take a language module as part of the Foundation Year.

Upon successful completion of the Foundation Year, you can automatically progress on to our three-year, full-time evening study BA Language and/with English.

• Our Foundation Year programmes will fully prepare you for undergraduate study. They are ideal if you are returning to study after a gap, if you have not previously studied the relevant subjects, or if you did not achieve the grades you needed for a place on your chosen undergraduate degree.
• In the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF), Modern Languages and Linguistics achieved 100% for a research environment conducive to producing research of the highest quality, while 73% of our research was recognised as world-leading or internationally excellent.
• You will be taught by specialists from our Department of Languages, Cultures and Applied Linguistics, a centre of teaching and research excellence.
• Ours is a community of scholars with shared interests in interdisciplinary topics and cross-cultural research. Our affiliated research centres, Birkbeck Research in Aesthetics of Kinship and Community (BRAKC) and the Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies (CILAVS), provide an important platform for this exchange. We also co-convene, with other departments, the Birkbeck Eighteenth-Century Research Group.
• The School of Arts is an official partner of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London. Opportunities for students have included a year’s free membership of the ICA, private views, discounts on all talks and events, free members' screenings and £3 cinema tickets on Tuesdays, up to 25% off ICA Artists' Editions and a monthly e-newsletter.