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Article: Students fall short on Vocabulary | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 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 185 of 319 22 April 2014 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | ||
Hm is the french C1 that academic? I can handle this stuff in Finnish but I don't think I was required to. I remember a task about writing a report on a work accident, and something about whether overweight people and smokers should have less insurance coverage or whatever. (On a side note, I'm ashamed to admit that when speaking about whether homosexual couples should be allowed to adopt kids, I just said that from a child's point of view that's better than no family at all, implying that a heterosexual family is better :/ And as you know I passed. I think they genuinely care more about my language knowledge than whether I give the "right" answers.) As for scoring 50/100 or whatever, I have to admit I'm bothered by the idea of being able to flunk a part completely and still pass the whole, without any list of your stronger and weaker skills. There should be some minimal requirements for each part... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 186 of 319 22 April 2014 at 4:48pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm not sure about the DALF exams for French but for the DELE Spanish exams, you have to at least pass all parts to succeed. But to come back to the main point of contention here. I'm not saying that one should avoid all those things that emk has pointed to, and particularly the subjunctive. Basically, and regardless of the CFER level, you are being assessed on your ability to communicate about a topic. As was pointed out here, and I have also mentioned a number of times, the topics are quite generic and chosen to allow you to demonstrate your ability to use the language effectively. Does the test description specify how this is done? There is the vague term: demonstrate good control of varied grammar. So you use whatever tools you have. Let's not be silly here. Nobody is saying that you should avoid anything. I'm just saying that there are more than one ways to skin a cat. Suppose you do not use a particular element of grammar because it just never came up, will the examiner say "gotcha!, you didn't use X, one point less"? Suppose you don't use the pronoun en for ten minutes because you never needed it, do you lose points? That is the essence of the whole CFEF task-based approach. This is the very opposite of the grammar-translation approach that I think emk harks back to. There the examiner had a list, figuratively speaking, of points of grammar that you had to use. Today, on the contrary, the examiner is saying show me how you can discuss a topic intelligently in the language. I think people should put themselves in the examiner's shoes and think what it's like to have a discussion about a topic. Are you listening for specific words and constructions or are you observing how the person is able to get ideas across? Is it awkward? Is it repetitious? Is the person making egregious mistakes? Is the person struggling? Or is the person sailing fluently through the subject? You ask a question and the candidate is able to reformulate it and send it back to you for clarification? In other words, can the person communicate effectively? If we return to this question of vocabulary size, we can ask if there it is really vocabulary size that distinguishes a C2 speaker from a B2. Probably not. It's more likely the ability to use the vocabulary in more sophisticated and nuanced ways. One way to do this is with set phrases, idioms and metaphoric usage of words. If you add some word play and puns, you head to the front of the line. None of this requires more words. It requires more mastery of the words you have. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 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 187 of 319 22 April 2014 at 5:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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The way I see it, if you can go from B2 to C2 without learning more vocabulary, this means your vocabulary already was larger than what B2 requires. But in general, understanding/producing a wider range of discourse requires a larger vocabulary.
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 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 188 of 319 22 April 2014 at 5:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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s_allard, I've been thinking about your arguments for a long time now. (This is not the first time we've had this discussion, after all.) But the more time I spend visiting Montreal, the more sense your position makes, at least under certain circumstances.
If I wanted to work in France, I'd want excellent reading and listening skills, even if my conversation was a little rough around the edges. There are plenty of places in France, after all, where English won't do me that much good, and if I don't understand what people are saying, my life is going to be difficult. So I'd sacrifice a little output quality for really robust comprehension, if I had to choose. But if I wanted to work in Montreal, I agree that it would actually be more useful to know 3,000 word families, but to know them really well, and to be able to speak very fast and idiomatically within my range. According to the study Patrick linked, 3,000 word families provides 96% or 98% coverage of spoken conversation, or something like that. Why would I want different linguistic skills in Paris and Montreal? Well, when you get right down to it, Montreal is basically a bilingual city. When I'm there, I don't speak French because it's essential for communication (English will go pretty far if you're nice about it), but out of a desire to be polite to francophones, and to meet them halfway. And in those circumstances, awkward French isn't as useful as it might be elsewhere: Why not just switch to English, since "everybody" speaks it pretty well, anyways? Socially, it would be better to really good with a limited vocabulary than to stumble over a larger vocabulary. If I need to express a nuanced idea, I could often just switch to English for a minute. Still, even in Montreal, it would be nice to be able to read signs like those billboards saying Quebecois de souche that are all over the city, and to understand a doctor when she says she's going to ausculter me. And words like souche "stump" and ausculter "examine (often with a stethoscope)" are in those medium- and low-frequency ranges Patrick was talking about, and English cognates won't help. So I think that sooner or later, it's handy to recognize a lot of words—but the precise balance of skills needed may vary between environments. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 189 of 319 22 April 2014 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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@mk. Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against vocabulary, heavens no. I like to debate, or argue, as everyone
here knows, but my main point it that we learn words as they come up. You learn ausculter when it comes up in real life or in a book. I wouldn't bother learning it on a list. My other hobby horse is the idea of squeezing more power out the words we have rather than accumulating more words. This, in my opinion, is what separates great speakers from good speakers. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 190 of 319 22 April 2014 at 5:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, you need at least 5 points from each part (out of 25) and at least 50 out of 100 total to pass at the DELF/DALF exams.
So you cannot totally fail any of the four, even though having low points (such as by not using advanced vocabulary and grammar at all) at anything takes away from your "wiggle room". I had only 6 or 8 at the speaking part but it didn't go in a standard way, compared to the rules and to the way the speaking part went for other people I knew to take the exam. (Such as the fact that there should always be two examinators listening to you and grading you and one of mine went for a coffee or something and wasn't there 14 out of my 15 minutes). I think I could have got anything between 8-15 otherwise. The fact that 5 points are the minimum saved my skin and investement. Had I failed because of the speaking part, I would have needed to prove my skills by arguing with Institut Francais about regularity of the exam :-D I agree there are few topics that are suitable for the B2 as it is designed. However, combination of the textbook approach (always one side of the argument, never the other) and how the exam went (basically, a monologue is required, not discussion) makes me wonder what trully is expected of a B2 learner. It is totally different from the English exams where the speaking part is much more interactive, you are supposed to interact with one of the examinators (the other is just listening) and with another candidate, you are supposed not only to give a lecture on your opinion, you are to defend it politely against someone else. And the C1 CAE tasks were, in my opinion, much easier than the B2 DELF tasks. I think it is very good only 5 points are the minimum for each separate part, considering the tasks are meant to be hard and some don't even make much sense. Really, I have no trouble asking my money back for a DVD that doesn't work but I would never waste 250 words on it in any language so making up a letter of that length was difficult. Tasks like this make me grateful there is the "low" treshold because there are factors different from your language ability. I think s_allard misunderstood emk's point here, which I share. There is not a list of things you need to use (such as the pronout en). But if you don't use any advanced grammar, stick to easier sentence constructions and just efficiently use basic grammar to avoid anything more complicated, you are not going to get that many grammar points at a B2 exam. You can speak efficiently with natives using just basic grammar and vocabulary if you are creative and bold about it but you are not going to fool examinators at an advanced exam. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 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 191 of 319 22 April 2014 at 5:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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English actually has auscultation/auscultate :) Russian has borrowed it from Latin too. But you need to have an interest in medicine to know these.
And yeah, this makes sense for bilingual/multilingual places. Reminds me on my experience in Malta too. Almost everyone speaks good Italian but the default languages are English for travellers and Maltese for locals. In Finland I can just reply in Finnish if someone tries to switch to English, but with Malta and Italian it just doesn't make sense. (In most of Finland it of course won't make sense to use Swedish unless I can pretend I don't speak Finnish or English) I wonder whether Barcelona is like that too... But that's a very special case. For many HTLAL'ers it's completely different. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5563 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 192 of 319 22 April 2014 at 5:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Discussion of environmentalism has been part of higher secondary education language
education in quite a few European countries for a while. It was an essential part of the UK's A (16-18 years) level French and German when I was at school (late 1980s) and I remember discussing it with my German nephew when he was taking the arbitur in the late 1990s. As EMK says, it is a relatively 'neutral' political discussion that tests/trains abstract concepts. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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