French: 30m test and recovering fluency (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

French: 30m test and recovering fluency
Tags: Brushing up a language \| Placement Test \| Fluency \| French
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

victorhart Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie United States mandarinexperiment.o Joined 3708 days ago 66 posts - 155 votes Speaks: English, Portuguese, Spanish, French Studies: Mandarin	Message 1 of 3 21 December 2014 at 3:32pm \| IP Logged
	Yesterday while driving I mentally designed a self-administered French proficiency test that takes just 30 minutes. I later wrote down the rules (which I've pasted below), took the test myself and posted my embarrassing results for the whole world to see. It's really simple and avoids the major test design challenge of grading, since the purpose of this test is to take it periodically (in my case, maybe about once a year) and simply compare results over time. I would be happy to receive all manner of comments including: (1) What did you think of my test? (2) How would you assess my writing and speaking results? (3) What would your prognosis be regarding my progress? (4) You take my test and post your results. (5) Anybody care to join me in my French Fluency Recovery Project? (6) Explain your own strategies for learning or improving your French. I learned French when I was a young lad, but I never use it and my fluency has been deteriorating year after year. At 12 years old, with four months at a French school in Burundi in 1991, I went from practically zero knowledge to a high degree of fluency--I was able to get good grades and have social interactions like any French or Belgian kid. After that, however, my studies were pretty much limited to one semester of an excellent French class while studying at Williams College in 1999, and then a period of perhaps six months in 2006 during which I spoke with the manager at my language institute, who was a native speaker, for a few minutes a day, took about 10 or 15 one- hour classes with him, and listened to about 15 minutes of RFI a day. Nowadays, I don't consider myself fluent anymore. As I wrote last week on my blog, "It’s so rusty that I’m hesitant to use it at all. On the rare occasions I have the opportunity to speak in French, things often go well for a few sentences. However, as conversation transitions to untested ground, terrifying gaps in my vocabulary emerge like yawning abysses and I recoil back to a more familiar language." So my plan now is to devote an average of at least 10 minutes per day for a couple of years, until I recover full fluency. Possibly, this will become a lifelong habit. Thus, the purpose of the test is to be able to measure and share my progress. Here are the instructions, followed by my essay. You can hear my speaking answer and read a little more about my project here. TEST INSTRUCTIONS Open Le Monde, go to Culture section and read articles in exact order they appear for 10 minutes without taking any notes or looking anything up. You should read approximately 900 words of texts, regardless of the number of articles. Close the articles, immediately begin speaking without any type of aid for 5 minutes. You must try to summarize what you read and give your opinion about the topics, without getting off topic at all. Open plain text document and write for 15 minutes, without spell or grammar check, Internet use, or any other type of support. You must try to summarize what you read and give your opinion about the texts, without straying off topic. You should write approximately 250 words of text. WRITING ANSWER J’ai lu trois articles. Les premiers deux étaient sur le noveau Musée des Confluences. Ce musée raconte toute l’histoire de l’humanité ! C’est à dire, c’est três ambitieux ! Il occupe 30,000 mètre carré. Il contient millards des pieces representant les aspects cientifiques et symboliques de l’humanité, dès les civiliations anciens jusqu’a la modernité. Le investissement a été fait completement par le Département du Rhôde. Au début, ils ont calculé que le coût serait 60 millons d´euros, mas au final il a couté comme 289 millons d’euros ! Ça parait les projets au Brésil. Il me surprent qu´en France ça serait ainsi – enfin, la France est un pays sérieux ! Le musée est part de projeto urbain au centre ville dans le sud de presqu’ils lyonaisse. Ce projet a transformé tout-à-fait la región, qui est actuelment méconnaissable. La transformation a été faite par des investissement privée et publique. Il y a des bâtiments de bureaux et aussi de apartements (e je ne me souvient pas le mot pour les lieus où les gens vivent). Le troisième article étaient sur le film Timbuktu, qui a était choisi comme un des candidats pour l’Oscar du meilleur film étranger. C’est sur une invasion des islamiste en Toumbactou et il est basé en faits réels, puisque en faite en 2012 Al Qaeda a occupé pour un temps, avant que l’armée française l’a expulsé. Le film est un co-production entre France e Mauritanie. Il y a des autres candidats a meilleur film étranger : parmi eux, un film suédois et un argentin. SPEAKING ANSWER Available here. Edited by victorhart on 21 December 2014 at 3:39pm 5 persons have voted this message useful
catullus_roar Quadrilingual Octoglot Groupie Australia Joined 4569 days ago 89 posts - 184 votes Speaks: Malay, Hokkien, English, Mandarin, Cantonese, French, German, Spanish Studies: Italian, Latin, Armenian, Afrikaans, Russian	Message 2 of 3 27 December 2014 at 5:44am \| IP Logged
	(1) What did you think of my test? - I think it's very similar to some parts of the DALF C1 test, and therefore is a valid way to assess not just fluency of comprehension/production, but also working ability in the language. (2) How would you assess my writing and speaking results? - As a francophone, I could understand everything you wrote even though there were grammar issues. You seem to be writing from 'sound', and a lot of the mistakes seem to be derived from your phonetics. You definitely have a good grasp of vocabulary, though how much of that was from the Le Monde articles is difficult to determine. The accent, in terms of speaking, is pretty bad (sorry). Strong 'anglophone' accent. Still, it is definitely comprehensible and I get the gist of what you're saying. A+ for effort in keeping the speech going even though you were struggling at points. (3) What would your prognosis be regarding my progress? - I think that based on your attitude and your experience with language learning (checked out your Wordpress), you'll definitely be able to get your French back to an ideal level. Your biggest weakness right now would be speaking, which I suspect might carry over to your listening. Perhaps another component of your test, to be added, could be listening to Radio France for 5 minutes and summarizing the conversation? Due to sheer laziness I'm not going to take the test right now, but I would love to in the near future. I'm also interested in the fact that you're picking up Mandarin - it is one of the most difficult ones to pick up accurately, coming from a native speaker. 4 persons have voted this message useful
victorhart Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie United States mandarinexperiment.o Joined 3708 days ago 66 posts - 155 votes Speaks: English, Portuguese, Spanish, French Studies: Mandarin	Message 3 of 3 03 January 2015 at 6:27pm \| IP Logged
	catullus_roar, I truly appreciate your taking the time to look at my test and comment on it. I'm glad you considered the test valid and I'm sure you're right about my poor accent and grammar. I'm a little surprised you're more positive about my vocabulary than my accent, since my self-assessment is quite the opposite, but that is useful feedback. My listening comprehension, at least with RFI, is actually near 100%. So I obviously need to get speaking practice, which is the hardest thing to do. I will take at least one one-hour class per month. By the way, I am very impressed that you have 4 native languages. How is that possible? I am native in Portuguese and English because I've spoken both pretty much my entire life, and though I grew up with English, I have used mostly Portuguese, intensively and conscientiously, for the past 14 years. I have a vague goal of reaching native or near-native proficiency in French and Spanish (I'm close to near-native in Spanish), and maybe in a couple of decades in Mandarin - but I sometimes wonder whether that is even actually possible. Although I speak multiple languages, I don't believe I have any special talent for acquiring them. 1 person has voted this message useful

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victorhart Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie United States mandarinexperiment.o Joined 3708 days ago 66 posts - 155 votes Speaks: English, Portuguese, Spanish, French Studies: Mandarin	Message 1 of 3 21 December 2014 at 3:32pm \| IP Logged
	Yesterday while driving I mentally designed a self-administered French proficiency test that takes just 30 minutes. I later wrote down the rules (which I've pasted below), took the test myself and posted my embarrassing results for the whole world to see. It's really simple and avoids the major test design challenge of grading, since the purpose of this test is to take it periodically (in my case, maybe about once a year) and simply compare results over time. I would be happy to receive all manner of comments including: (1) What did you think of my test? (2) How would you assess my writing and speaking results? (3) What would your prognosis be regarding my progress? (4) You take my test and post your results. (5) Anybody care to join me in my French Fluency Recovery Project? (6) Explain your own strategies for learning or improving your French. I learned French when I was a young lad, but I never use it and my fluency has been deteriorating year after year. At 12 years old, with four months at a French school in Burundi in 1991, I went from practically zero knowledge to a high degree of fluency--I was able to get good grades and have social interactions like any French or Belgian kid. After that, however, my studies were pretty much limited to one semester of an excellent French class while studying at Williams College in 1999, and then a period of perhaps six months in 2006 during which I spoke with the manager at my language institute, who was a native speaker, for a few minutes a day, took about 10 or 15 one- hour classes with him, and listened to about 15 minutes of RFI a day. Nowadays, I don't consider myself fluent anymore. As I wrote last week on my blog, "It’s so rusty that I’m hesitant to use it at all. On the rare occasions I have the opportunity to speak in French, things often go well for a few sentences. However, as conversation transitions to untested ground, terrifying gaps in my vocabulary emerge like yawning abysses and I recoil back to a more familiar language." So my plan now is to devote an average of at least 10 minutes per day for a couple of years, until I recover full fluency. Possibly, this will become a lifelong habit. Thus, the purpose of the test is to be able to measure and share my progress. Here are the instructions, followed by my essay. You can hear my speaking answer and read a little more about my project here. TEST INSTRUCTIONS Open Le Monde, go to Culture section and read articles in exact order they appear for 10 minutes without taking any notes or looking anything up. You should read approximately 900 words of texts, regardless of the number of articles. Close the articles, immediately begin speaking without any type of aid for 5 minutes. You must try to summarize what you read and give your opinion about the topics, without getting off topic at all. Open plain text document and write for 15 minutes, without spell or grammar check, Internet use, or any other type of support. You must try to summarize what you read and give your opinion about the texts, without straying off topic. You should write approximately 250 words of text. WRITING ANSWER J’ai lu trois articles. Les premiers deux étaient sur le noveau Musée des Confluences. Ce musée raconte toute l’histoire de l’humanité ! C’est à dire, c’est três ambitieux ! Il occupe 30,000 mètre carré. Il contient millards des pieces representant les aspects cientifiques et symboliques de l’humanité, dès les civiliations anciens jusqu’a la modernité. Le investissement a été fait completement par le Département du Rhôde. Au début, ils ont calculé que le coût serait 60 millons d´euros, mas au final il a couté comme 289 millons d’euros ! Ça parait les projets au Brésil. Il me surprent qu´en France ça serait ainsi – enfin, la France est un pays sérieux ! Le musée est part de projeto urbain au centre ville dans le sud de presqu’ils lyonaisse. Ce projet a transformé tout-à-fait la región, qui est actuelment méconnaissable. La transformation a été faite par des investissement privée et publique. Il y a des bâtiments de bureaux et aussi de apartements (e je ne me souvient pas le mot pour les lieus où les gens vivent). Le troisième article étaient sur le film Timbuktu, qui a était choisi comme un des candidats pour l’Oscar du meilleur film étranger. C’est sur une invasion des islamiste en Toumbactou et il est basé en faits réels, puisque en faite en 2012 Al Qaeda a occupé pour un temps, avant que l’armée française l’a expulsé. Le film est un co-production entre France e Mauritanie. Il y a des autres candidats a meilleur film étranger : parmi eux, un film suédois et un argentin. SPEAKING ANSWER Available here. Edited by victorhart on 21 December 2014 at 3:39pm 5 persons have voted this message useful
catullus_roar Quadrilingual Octoglot Groupie Australia Joined 4569 days ago 89 posts - 184 votes Speaks: Malay, Hokkien, English, Mandarin, Cantonese, French, German, Spanish Studies: Italian, Latin, Armenian, Afrikaans, Russian	Message 2 of 3 27 December 2014 at 5:44am \| IP Logged
	(1) What did you think of my test? - I think it's very similar to some parts of the DALF C1 test, and therefore is a valid way to assess not just fluency of comprehension/production, but also working ability in the language. (2) How would you assess my writing and speaking results? - As a francophone, I could understand everything you wrote even though there were grammar issues. You seem to be writing from 'sound', and a lot of the mistakes seem to be derived from your phonetics. You definitely have a good grasp of vocabulary, though how much of that was from the Le Monde articles is difficult to determine. The accent, in terms of speaking, is pretty bad (sorry). Strong 'anglophone' accent. Still, it is definitely comprehensible and I get the gist of what you're saying. A+ for effort in keeping the speech going even though you were struggling at points. (3) What would your prognosis be regarding my progress? - I think that based on your attitude and your experience with language learning (checked out your Wordpress), you'll definitely be able to get your French back to an ideal level. Your biggest weakness right now would be speaking, which I suspect might carry over to your listening. Perhaps another component of your test, to be added, could be listening to Radio France for 5 minutes and summarizing the conversation? Due to sheer laziness I'm not going to take the test right now, but I would love to in the near future. I'm also interested in the fact that you're picking up Mandarin - it is one of the most difficult ones to pick up accurately, coming from a native speaker. 4 persons have voted this message useful
victorhart Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie United States mandarinexperiment.o Joined 3708 days ago 66 posts - 155 votes Speaks: English, Portuguese, Spanish, French Studies: Mandarin	Message 3 of 3 03 January 2015 at 6:27pm \| IP Logged
	catullus_roar, I truly appreciate your taking the time to look at my test and comment on it. I'm glad you considered the test valid and I'm sure you're right about my poor accent and grammar. I'm a little surprised you're more positive about my vocabulary than my accent, since my self-assessment is quite the opposite, but that is useful feedback. My listening comprehension, at least with RFI, is actually near 100%. So I obviously need to get speaking practice, which is the hardest thing to do. I will take at least one one-hour class per month. By the way, I am very impressed that you have 4 native languages. How is that possible? I am native in Portuguese and English because I've spoken both pretty much my entire life, and though I grew up with English, I have used mostly Portuguese, intensively and conscientiously, for the past 14 years. I have a vague goal of reaching native or near-native proficiency in French and Spanish (I'm close to near-native in Spanish), and maybe in a couple of decades in Mandarin - but I sometimes wonder whether that is even actually possible. Although I speak multiple languages, I don't believe I have any special talent for acquiring them. 1 person has voted this message useful