During secondary school, I learnt Welsh, French and German, eventually going on to study German at GCSE and A Level. I have always harboured a desire to learn Japanese and/or Mandarin, and this is why I considered studying Japanese at university. However, I was put off when I learnt that spoken Japanese relies heavily on intonation to inflect the meaning of spoken words. I thought to myself: “how can I learn to speak Japanese if I won’t be able to lipread when it’s being intoned in a certain way?”.

Now, funnyoldlife has said he learnt Japanese at university. Time for me to go to college, methinks! One question though: what can you do in terms of communication support?

• Cambridge: 2nd – I was offered a place by Jesus College, Cambridge, and although this was my first choice university, I didn’t get the grades they wanted. I’ve always wondered what my life would be like now if I went to Cambridge.
• York: 8th – I applied to York and was offered an interview, but I’d already accepted offers from Cambridge and Swansea by this point.
• Warwick: 9th – I was offered a place, and a friend, Catherine Aveyard, went there.
• Durham: 24th – I was offered a place.
• Leicester: 34th – I was offered a place, and am currently doing my LLM by distance learning at this university.
• Swansea: 61st – my second choice, I did my History degree there.
• UWE: 84th – I did my Diploma in Law (CPE) there.

Anyway, I digress. The whole point of this post is to have a moan about the fact that I didn’t get the grades I needed to go to Cambridge. They offered me a place on the condition that I got AAB in my A Levels. I got BBC. This was particularly annoying because all through my A Levels, I consistently got As in English Literature and History, and Bs for German, but the final grades rested on the final exams, and two years of work were wasted because I didn’t get the grades I felt I deserved.

Perhaps I didn’t work hard enough for the exams, perhaps I was too cocky, perhaps I couldn’t do it. I don’t know. It’s always going to bug me.

What’s the alternative? Well, coursework seems a very popular choice these days, but are they really fair? After all, they are reliant on a student doing research and then copying and pasting information from a book into the content of an essay. The DfES and school teachers seem to think it’s an easy way for students to pick up high grades.

Hmm, can’t think of any other methods of assessment. Any ideas you lot?