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Underestimating CEFR levels | ||
Tags: Placement Test | CEFR Language Levels | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Immersion, Schools & Certificates |  | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6161 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 1 of 12 27 March 2012 at 1:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A recent post in the polyglots forum has highlighted the tendency to underestimate the work required in reaching the various CEFR levels. E.g. A1, A2, .. C2. A common misperception is that A1 and A2 are extremely basic and can be learnt in a matter of days. The idea you are restricted to tarzan like speech at A1 is false. Taking French as an example, the following describes what you're expected to know at A1 and includes a quiz for each concept.
French A1 At A2 this increases to the following grammar concepts, French A2. Oddly, the French assessment for FLE B1, French B1, doesn't include the conditional or the subjunctive. These are included in the Spanish DELE at B1. Edited by DaraghM on 27 March 2012 at 1:57pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6607 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 2 of 12 27 March 2012 at 2:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The official descriptions don't specify how much grammar you should know. Imo these are more like practical guidelines for passing the exams. You definitely should be able to make simple (grammatically correct!) sentences, though.
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6449 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 3 of 12 27 March 2012 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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While A1 and A2 levels can't be reached in hours, they can be reached in days. Look at the accelerated Finnish challenge: in 35-45 hours of study, Arekkusu Sprachprofi, and Ellesevia reached what the assessor considered an A2 level. Both Arekkusu and Sprachprofi did this within one month of studying.
I did 28 hours of study before the exam, over the course of a few days, and without explicit grammar study beyond skimming a reference grammar, and then did the test while not feeling well after several days of not studying. Like everyone else, I got 100% on the reading section and wrote comprehensible (though more awkward) Finnish with a dictionary. My results on the grammar test were worse, and I skipped the spoken one. I've also taken a more conventional language class, aimed at getting absolute beginners to A1 German in 4 weeks, with 6 hours a day of study 5 days a week. That's 120 hours. It seemed most people who take that class get A1+ rankings, a few get A1, and a few (generally experienced language learners who are doing more outside of class) actually manage to hit an A2 level. A1 and A2 levels are both more complicated than having a handful of tourist phrases memorized, and you can't reach them in 5 or 10 hours in a language unrelated to one you know, but they're not monstrous towering behemoths of a thousand hours of work either - and you don't need to got anywhere near 100% on an exam to get certified as having reached a certain level. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5391 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 4 of 12 27 March 2012 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
Since Finnish is categorized as one of the harder Level IV languages (FSI ranking), this would probably come to about 20 hours for a Level I language. However, that doesn't necessarily mean you could cram this into a 2-day intensive session. A lot happens in the brain between study sessions and it's likely a few weeks would be ideal. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5066 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 5 of 12 27 March 2012 at 5:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
Building gramatically correct sentences is not so simple. There is hard to get grammar even in very simple sentences. Like English articles, for example. Or phrases which require gen. pl. in Russian. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6161 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 6 of 12 27 March 2012 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
I completely agree with these estimates. When I said days, I literally meant a couple of days and not several weeks. I've heard some people claim A2 after just a few days study. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6449 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 7 of 12 27 March 2012 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
While I had the worst results, I did the bulk of my study in about 5 days, and did about 16 hours of it "properly". Edit: I should say explicitly that I'm not claiming A2, though I could probably emulate it with a dictionary and occasional grammar references. Edited by Volte on 27 March 2012 at 6:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5570 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 8 of 12 27 March 2012 at 7:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm not entirely sure about actual exams, but I've always thought that language schools seem to assess their students somewhat more leniently than the actual guidelines seem to suggest they should.
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