|
 |
French DALF C1/C2 - current events etc? | ||
Tags: Diploma/Certificate | French | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Kubelek Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland chomikuj.pl/Kuba_wal Joined 6797 days ago 415 posts - 528 votes  Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 1 of 9 09 January 2014 at 2:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Hello,
I'm considering taking the DALF C1 exam sometime mid 2015 to pad my resume, in case I decide to relocate to a French speaking country. I've learned that the DALF is a different animal than the English equivalent, with which I'm familiar. I believe that if you read English books (fiction and literature) fairly regularly and with ease you shouldn't have any trouble passing the exam, as the bulk of the score depends on your knowledge of collocations and just understanding texts of moderate difficulty (comparable to Newsweek articles). Writing tasks usually include a letter or some form of free form, where the content (as long as it's coherent) is not scored, and the listening section is artificial rather than an excerpt from a real source. As for the topics covered, there were no real rules - you could get anything from a text on crop cultivation or crossing cows to an article on classical music. It didn't feel unfair, as other than a broad vocabulary it didn't require any expertise in any of these areas. DALF however supposedly contains dense texts on topics such as current events or social/environmental issues. One forum member mentioned that his knowledge of a specific area of sociology helped him pass. Another said that the exam shouldn't be taken lightly even by learners who have lived in France for years, or are University students in a French speaking country. Could anyone elaborate on why it's important to have a good grasp of current events and social studies? Is it about the vocabulary, or about concepts? Is the exam scored not only based on HOW you write but also on WHAT you write? Is there really a predlection for humanities on the exam? I have a medical/scientific background and honestly I have no interest in French/Francophone politics or social issues. I doubt I could say anything intellingent about sociology, law or beaux arts even in my native language or English. Will that be an impediment to passing the exam? IF SO: could anyone recommend what magazine/weekly, news station or radio broadcast I could start to follow in order to prepare myself? Edited by Kubelek on 09 January 2014 at 2:05pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5336 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 2 of 9 09 January 2014 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
I haven't taken it yet but I do have test study materials so take this with a grain of salt. It's not so much tha
you have to know a lot about these subject areas but that you have to be able to write about them/talk about them in a logically-structured way. It wouldn't hurt to have some outside knowledge to draw on when you're being questioned but the test will be based on documents they give you (and apparently you have the choice between a lit/social sciences topic and a natural science one). For C1 level you have to be able to write a synthèse which has it's own rules (and takes practice) plus an essay. It's definitely focusing a lot on academic skills beyond just plain linguistic ones. For preparation someone who passed the C2 level said that you should be reading a lot of argumentative writing (opinion articles, nonfiction books on these sorts of topics,etc) and watching/listening to news shows with a lot of debate. It's not so much general knowledge you need but the ability to identify arguments and form your own (as well as feign enough interest in the topic to give you the energy to get through the exam). Examiners seem to really love the logical connectors so make sure you get an advanced grammar book that goes over them in depth and make sure you use them everywhere. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5477 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 9 09 January 2014 at 4:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
First, here are some sample exams to give you an idea: DELF/DALF examples DALF examples I've passed the DELF B2, and I've considered talking the DALF C1 at some point. We several people here who've passed the C1 exam, and I'm sure they could provide you with more details. For the DELF B2, you'll typically have to do the following, though the details vary. I know this isn't the exam you want to take, but it will give you an idea of what sorts of skills are required one level down. See the note below about passing grades, however—it's not as hard as it sounds. 1. Read a newspaper article, typically equivalent to something you'd find in the New York times, and answer reading comprehension questions. The questions are not necessarily simple, and you'll have to make judgement calls about which answer is best. Note that article will never be about politics or recent "current events"—it will almost always be an older general-interest news story. Typical subjects could be anything from bed & breakfasts in Brittany, to the effects of logging and "bush meat" hunting on the African jungle. Popular subjects include environment, work, school, relations between men and women, etc. 2. Write a 250-word "letter to the editor", or similar persuasive letter, on a specified topic. On my exam, the question was something like, "A magazine that you subscribe to has said they either need to increase subscription costs by a substantial amount or need to start including more ads. Explain to the which choice you'd prefer, and support your position." 3. Listen to two audio passages, twice and answer questions. It seems like they often pull these recordings from France Info. These recordings will almost always be news stories or discussions between several people. 4. Give a presentation and answer questions. For the spoken exam, I had two choose between two subjects. I went with "Should Paris institute London-style congestion charges for driving in the city?" I had 30 minutes to prepare (with no dictionary), and then I had to give a 10-minute structured presentation (without notes) that summarized the arguments, laid out a position, and provided evidence to back up my arguments. Then they spent 10 minutes asking me questions like, "But wouldn't congestion charges hurt poor people more? What do you think we should do about that?" The presentation doesn't have to be brilliant, but it does need to hang together and make sense. In other words, for the DELF B2, you need to pretty solid on newspapers/news radio, and you need to be able to make well-structured arguments supporting a position. This sounds intimidating, but note that the passing score is only 50%, so you have some room to occasionally flail around. The goal here is "would not actually flunk a high school social studies class" as opposed to "sounds like a smart university student." For the DALF C1, things get a bit harder. As far as I've been able to determine, the DALF C1 typically de-emphasizes news in favor of purely academic subjects. For example, one of the sample reading passes is an older Guy de Maupassant passage talking about literature. For the writing passage, you need to know how to write a decent synthèse.
For the DALF C1, you can choose between « Lettres et sciences humaines » and « Sciences ». Obviously, you're going to want the latter.
Try France Info, France Inter, Le Monde, Le Figaro and LCI/LCP. For the DALF C1, you're also going to want to include more academic material as well. Edited by emk on 09 January 2014 at 4:53pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kubelek Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland chomikuj.pl/Kuba_wal Joined 6797 days ago 415 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 4 of 9 09 January 2014 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Thanks a lot for your input sctroyenne.
For sure the first thing I'll do is familiarize myself with all the tasks on the exam. I have heard of the synthese and I found a book that focuses specifically on written tasks found in DALF. Natural sciences sounds like a way out for me, thanks for that information. I'll check out past papers to see if I could fare any better in these topics. Is there a huge gap between the difficulty of C1 and C2 in terms of content you have to work with, or is it mostly about the amount of leeway you are given? Once I start preparing for real I'll surely find out for myself, but if anyone has experience with both I'd be interested in listening to what you have to say. I don't really aim for C2 because the exam is quite expensive to me and it would also be a waste of time to have to retake it at a later date (plus days off from work etc.). C1 should be enough for my needs. Edited by Kubelek on 09 January 2014 at 6:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kubelek Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland chomikuj.pl/Kuba_wal Joined 6797 days ago 415 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 5 of 9 09 January 2014 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
emk: thanks you for writing about your exam. It seems to me that my current skills
overall match better to B2, but since I have some time left I feel like I should aim higher. Too bad that instead of just making the exam harder they switch the focus. Out of curiosity I just took a look at a Polish C2 exam, and it resembles Cambridge exams, but there are more tasks focusing purely on grammar (eg one task only about declensions, another about word building using our illogical system of prefixes etc). Texts are quite varied and resemble texts used in our 'Bac' at the end of high school. Hard to say how a native speaker would fare, I suppose that results would resemble statistics for our Polish Bac, since grammar exercises don't really pose a challenge, but apparently reading with comprehension is not a universal skill even among high schoolers. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5336 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 6 of 9 10 January 2014 at 7:57am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
To get more of an idea of what you would be up against, I dug out my copy of Alter Ego 5 which has DALF preparation sections. The Entraînement for the reading and writing section for C2 is a science topic which I can summarize here:
Dossier : Le Clonage Document 1 : Compétition autour des cellules souches : Emilie Guyonnet, "A la recherché de L'Enfant parfait", Le Monde diplomatique, juin 2009 Document 2 : Des clones encore plus ressemblants - "Jusqu'à present, cloner un animal nécessitait de disposer d'ovocytes. Mais une nouvelle méthode permet de s'en dispenser. Elle fait appel aux 'cellules souches pluripotentes induites' pour créer des clones d'un nouveau genre." : Cécile Klinger, La Recherche, janvier 2010 Dossier 3 : Un chien héros du 11 septembre cloné cinq fois : Marie-Josée Nantel, Le Figaro, 19 juin 2009 Documents iconographiques: 1. Un modèle du processus du clonage 2. Un dessin de presse : Un scientifique et son clone montrent à un homme un peu boulversé son clone. Ils lui disent "Bon d'accord, on s'est un peu servi de votre ADN..." "Mais avouez que c'est sympa de se voir, non ?" Epreuve Ecrite : Sujet au choix 1. Vous êtes médecinet vous soutenez la recherce sur les cellules souches qui, selon vous, permettront de guérir de nombreuses maladies. Vous rédigez un article expliquant votre point de vue pour le prochain numéro du magazine La Recherche, qui publie un dossier special sur le clonage thérapeutique. (700 mots minimum) 2. Vous êtes chercheur en sciences et membre du Comité d'éthique de la recherché de votre université. Selon vous, les avancés scientifiques sur les cellules embryonnaires presentent de nombreuses derives dont il faut se méfier. Vous rédigez un article expliquant votre point de vue pour le prochain numéro du magazine La Recherche, qui publie un dossier special sur le clonage thérapeutique. (700 mots minimum). So there you have it. For the C1 exam you would be writing a synthèse based on documents like these plus an essay. It looks like a good publication for you to check out would be La Recherche. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kubelek Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland chomikuj.pl/Kuba_wal Joined 6797 days ago 415 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 7 of 9 10 January 2014 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Certainly, I'll try to read more popular-scientific articles to get a better idea of
what's expected of me. I've actually done a fair amount of scientific reading and listening for pleasure over the years, but this time I'll focus on the language they use and how arguments are presented. I went to a polyglot meet-up last night and I'm now painfuly aware of how rusty my French is, my speech was heavily influenced by Spanish (I have recently spent a year in Spain). Lots of work to be done in all areas it seems. Thank you for your time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| pesahson Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5673 days ago 448 posts - 840 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 8 of 9 10 January 2014 at 1:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Hi Kubelek, in which city was that polyglot meet up you spoke of? I'm curious.
1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
