Emma is a French and Hispanic Studies student at the University of Sheffield, and is spending the first half of her year abroad working in Lyon, and the second half studying in Valencia. Here is her advice for students who started learning a language at university (ab initio) and are using that language to study abroad.

Imagine Britney Spears tapping a pencil against a book, staring at the clock, bored of study and itching for class to end. That was me. Only, I was a boy, not famous, in university and didn’t have pigtails or a number 1 hit single! After studying Spanish for several years and opting to take it as part of my degree (Linguistics, Spanish and Business) I had known that the question of a year abroad was going to arise sooner or later. Here it was; study, work or teach? I’d always fancied myself as a bit of a know-all and thought it would be a more real experience if I was teaching English in a Spanish school than studying in a university, so I opted to do the British Council Assistantship Scheme.

When American actress and singer Gwyneth Paltrow was 15, she spent a year as an exchange student in Talavera de la Reina, Spain, where she learned to speak Spanish. This year she stars in the independent romantic comedy 'Thanks for Sharing' with Mark Ruffalo and also reprised her role as Pepper Potts in the film 'The Avengers', which broke records as the highest grossing U.S. opening weekend film of all time. It was confirmed that Paltrow will star in a Spanish film alongside Antonio Banderas to shoot in late 2012.