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Is C2 possible without a tutor ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5433 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 65 of 144 16 December 2014 at 2:44am | IP Logged | |||||
What is meant here by thesis quality discussions about language, literature and culture? In North American university traditions the thesis or dissertation is usually associated with the doctorate or the master's degree. This represents around five to seven years of university education. Is the OP saying that to pass the C2 level examination, one has to be able to write and speak about certain topics with the level of sophistication of someone who has at least five years of university education in that topic? I don't that this is the case nor was it the intention of the OP. We probably all agree that the CEFR wording the of C2-level requirements suggest the highest level of mastery of the language and an academic bias. But no where is there mention of years of university education or specific topics such as language, literature and culture. My own interpretation of the C2 requirements is that the candidate must be able to demonstrate linguistic sophistication, fluency and absence of mistakes when addressing any subject. More specifically, linguistic sophistication refers to precision, nuances and idiomatic usages of vocabulary and grammar. Pronunciation must be very good although the CEFR criteria make little mention of pronunciation per se. This does not mean that one has to sound like a university professor. I have suggested that the C2 level actually corresponds to something like one year of university education. I know that this is vague, but I'm suggesting that it is not the mastery of the content that is important as the mastery of the linguistic form. The subjects that one will have to write about or discuss are always very generic, all-purpose somewhat vague topics that are meant to allow the candidate the opportunity to demonstrate language skills. Let's say that you are asked to discuss something along the lines of "How has rise of the internet changed the world of education?" You're not really expected to produce a sociological analysis of the impact of the internet. This is a just pretext to see how you can show off, linguistically speaking. I know I'm repeating myself, but you the candidate must demonstrate control of the language. In the speaking test, this means being able to immediately set a tone of voice and articulate a degree of sophistication. All with good fluency and, of course, absence of mistakes. For example, in whatever target language, one could start off with something along the lines of: "Well this is obviously quite a large topic with many ramifications on which we could talk for hours. I'm not an expert in educational technology and educational policy. However, there are a number of key themes that we could look at. For example, one thing that comes to mind is the role of social media." One must always keep in mind that the examiner is most likely a language teacher and probably does not know much more about the subject than you. The person is listening to how you are stringing the words together. If you come out of the gate talking like in the example above, you immediately make a great impression. Now you have to keep it up, especially when you have to interact with the examiner(s). To come back to the idea of thesis-quality language, I don't think the idea is to write or speak like a doctoral thesis. I think what we're really looking at is a form of general non-fiction language somewhat along the lines of English for academic purposes. I would even suggest that the language required is closer to newspaper or magazine writing or the language we hear in television or radio interviews. All of this is exactly why I suggested that a good tutor should have a university degree. Any university degree. I believe that this guarantees some familiarity with sophisticated and technical language. Obviously, not everybody around here agrees with this. Another idea which got me into a lot of trouble here is that you don't need a huge speaking vocabulary to deal with the C-level tests. This is not the place for that debate but the fundamental point is that since these tests focus on language and not on content, demonstration of good control does not entail using a vast number of words. Scintillating conversation is synonymous with clever use of language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 66 of 144 16 December 2014 at 6:53am | IP Logged | |||||
Do examiners look for the use of language "islands"? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5433 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 67 of 144 16 December 2014 at 7:46am | IP Logged | |||||
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There is this myth out there in the world of language test taking that one can game speaking tests by
using a strategy of "islands". This is an idea popularized by Boris Shekhtman in his most well-known book "How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately." Shekstman was a respected language teacher of Russian. What he suggested in the idea of islands that the student work on rehearsing little mini-speeches or speaking units on any variety of topics. Then in a conversation or test one simply calls up a speech island that will flow easily off one's tongue. This idea is not actually bad. What people sometimes forget is that this idea is part of a larger strategy of using these islands as frames in which one inserts words in order to build a coherent discourse. What it certainly is not is a set text that one learns by heart without real understanding. My take on this strategy is that you concentrate on a small number of things that you can really master and figure out ways to squeeze the most value out of them. Of course, you have a speaking style with your favourite phrases and constructions. So you will try to use them. There are grammatical constructions that you may avoid. Nothing wrong with that if you have a good workaround. There are holes in your vocabulary. No problem, you can work around that as well. But there is only so much that you can pretend to know. Let's say that you are not totally comfortable with verb conjugations in French. Do you try to memorize only a series of key phrases with the most common verb forms? This is a risky strategy because you are at the mercy of the slightest question off the beaten track. My own variation of this idea is to really learn - not just memorize - the conjugations of the key verbs and then use these verbs to the max. As I mentioned in my previous post, the problem with making a great start on a speaking test is that you have to try to maintain the level. You can't game a C2-level test by memorizing some great passages and hope to string them together in a 30-minute discussion. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5343 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 68 of 144 16 December 2014 at 11:22am | IP Logged | |||||
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Personally, it is possible to pass C2 language exams without the help of a teacher/tutor - I did it this way. My personal experience has been learning a foreign language (including one's other tongue) is a very long process that can easily stretch for years. To improve my German, I have found it useful to live in German-speaking countries where I am exposed to the language on a daily basis, until I 'assimilate/internalise' the language. For example, when I go abroad for travel, words like "genau", "danke" pop out unconsciously. Of course, C2 requires a higher level of proficiency in terms of the fluidity of your conversation, the breadth of your vocabulary etc. To prepare for the exams, I just downloaded the past-year papers (or buy books) to see the type of questions they ask.
On the other hand, without the help of a good teacher, I think it's not that easy to pass the C2 exams with excellent grades. In any case, for a person passionate in learning languages like me, having a C2 certification is like a confirmation of my language proficiency (apart from vanity, such certifications are necessary for my job) and I even want to do a PhD in it... 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| yuriFromRoma Groupie Italy Joined 4716 days ago 48 posts - 69 votes Speaks: Italian* Studies: English, Russian | Message 69 of 144 16 December 2014 at 1:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's interesting, could you please elaborate more on this? How would you do so? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5433 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 70 of 144 16 December 2014 at 3:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
There are a couple of concepts here. The first is that of key verbs. Without going into much detail and wanting to highjack the thread, I'll say that in most languages, but more specifically the ones I know, French, English and Spanish, a very small number of verbs make up the bulk of usage. For example, in conversational French, four verbs, i.e. être, avoir, faire, aller, account for over half of all verb occurrences. If you learn, let's say, around 50 French verbs, you are very well equipped to deal with most everyday situations when speaking. From there the sky is the limit. The next concept is learning how to use the verbs. I'll have to say that my original statement was not very clear. What I really discourage is the rote memorization of conjugation tables. Yes, you have to learn conjugations but you have to keep a few principles in mind: 1. For languages like French and Spanish with complex conjugations systems, remember that at least half of those tenses and little tables are hardly used in the spoken language. In French, the present, the imparfait, the passé composé plus a little subjunctive are really all you need to start speaking well. The imperative can be easily derived from the preceding forms. 2. Verb conjugation systems are very systematic. One can be overwhelmed by what seems to be a large number of irregular verbs, but in reality they are simply little micro-structures that were developed to deal with phonetic irregularities. There're not as complicated as they seem. 3. Certain verb persons are more important than the others. In French, the verb forms with nous are quite rare in modern spoken French. They have been largely replaced by forms in on. In certain varieties of Spanish the vosotros is not used at all. 4. The real challenge with verbs is not so much the conjugation as how to use them properly. This is what you have to work on. Once you get a good handle on the fundamental verbs, all the others fall into place because they follow similar patterns. Edited by s_allard on 16 December 2014 at 3:14pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5433 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 71 of 144 17 December 2014 at 6:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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Without want to get too long-winded again, I think that one way to look at this issue is to put oneself
in the shoes of an C2-level oral proficiency examiner. Keep in mind that most but not all CEFR tests examine for a specific level and are not meant to determine one's level. In the case of the C2-level candidate, you the examiner are confronted with a candidate who claims to speak nearly as well as you. That's a pretty high standard. A typical test format requires that the candidate choose from a list of topics, reads a related article, prepares and presents an overview of the article and then engages in a debate with the examiner's. The whole thing will take around 75 minutes. Most of us are not professional language examiners but the basic principles of language assessment are pretty simple. There is a sort of grid with specific criteria that the examiner checks off in their assessment. Without getting technical here, we simply have to ask ourselves: What indicators tell us that a person is a proficient speaker of our language? I should mention that it is well known that examiners of oral proficiency make up their mind within less than 10 minutes of listening. How is this possible? It's actually pretty simple. The examiner only needs a relatively small sample of the candidate's actual speaking to get an overall idea of what the candidate is capable of. As a matter of fact, we all do this in our own language. After listening to a person for 30 seconds or less, we can tell if that person is a native speaker of our language. What turns an examiner on? First of all, good pronunciation. Although pronunciation is hardly mentioned in the CEFR criteria, it is obvious that everybody likes good clear pronunciation. Two, the candidate fully understands the examiner speaking at natural speed. Three, very few mistakes and these are preferably quickly self-corrected. And certainly no basic mistakes. Four, great flow and fluency. The candidate speaks at a natural speed without too much hesitation. Five, the candidate makes sense or can convey meaning in a manner similar to that of a native speaker with sophisticated control of grammar, good use of idiomatic expressions and precise vocabulary. Such is the nature of speaking that if you can demonstrate all this within five minutes of conversation, the examiner will simply assume that you can continue at the same level. The control and mastery that you show in the first ten minutes should be there 60 minutes later. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 72 of 144 17 December 2014 at 7:59am | IP Logged | |||||
2 persons have voted this message useful |
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