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French DALF exam | ||
Tags: Diploma/Certificate | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Immersion, Schools & Certificates |  | |
| Deniz Bilingual Heptaglot Groupie Czech RepublicRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6821 days ago 94 posts - 97 votes  Speaks: Czech*, Slovak*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, FrenchB2 Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, Indonesian, Persian | Message 9 of 24 10 May 2008 at 5:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Oi Isa,
Tudo bem? :) Apparently there are not too many members of the forum who passed Alliance francaise exams so it may be very interesting to know a bit more of your experience. Did you buy any of the books I or somebody else mentioned? Did you have a teacher or a specific course to help you prepare for the exam? How did you get to the level suitable for passing C1 exam? Did you use any of the methods? Like Espaces, Assimil, Le nouveau sans frontiers etc? Did you read a lot of books? If so, would you recommend me any? Had you trained your listening comprehension before you passed that exam? I consider taking DALF C1 or C2 next June, so I am really interested.. Deniz 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| isa! Triglot Newbie Brazil Joined 6072 days ago 38 posts - 40 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Portuguese*, FrenchC1, English Studies: Italian | Message 10 of 24 10 May 2008 at 7:04pm | IP Logged | ||
Hi Deniz, First of all I must correct you:DELF and DALF exams are not Alliance Française's exams! They are actually done by CIEP,which is a establishement attached to the Ministry of Education. Les Alliances Françaises are just the places where you take the examns, but they do not prepare them. Having said them, I'll answer your questions. I've actually been studying french for 3 years,at Alliance Frabçaise.As I said before,i got about 40% of my knowledge there and the other 60% i got by myself.After my second year in AF I took the decision to go to France and I stayed there for about 6 months. Once I came back, I started preparing for the DALF exam and passed it in November 2007. I didn't actually do a intensive preparation. I got this book http://www.amazon.fr/DELF-DALF-Compte-R%C3%A9sum%C3%A9-Synth %C3%A8se-A5-B1-B3/dp/2278042696/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&q id=1210462422&sr=8-8 because la synthèse de texte is one of the most important parts of the exam. You are also supposed to do a texte argumentatif in the format of a LETTER (so you have to know les formules d'appel et les formules de politesse). But I recomend you to get other books to prepare yourself. There are some really good ones in the market such as this one: http://www.amazon.fr/R%C3%A9ussir-DALF-niveaux-C1-r%C3%A9f%C 3%A9rence/dp/2278061011/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=12104 62422&sr=8-1. In addition to the book i also prepared myself by downloading some old exams from the internet and this was quite helpful. You'll have to do some research to find them because unfortunately I didn't keep them on my computer so i won't be able to send them to you. There are some samples in the ciep website (www.ciep.fr) so go take a look! As for the listening compreension yes, i did prepare myself to that. I recomend you to listen to some radio in french. I don't know if you have Itunes, but you could download it and hear some podcasts because i'm pretty sure that the listening compreension will be an extract from a radio program and it's not that easy since you have to give whole answers for very specific questions which means that just understanding the general sense of the program won't be enough. http://www.radiofrance.fr/chaines/france-bleu/?nr=5e7abd11c7 f656ff538b14bd2fcad39f http://www.rfi.fr/langues/statiques/rfi_anglais.asp And just one more thing: are you sure that you still have the time to do your incription to the June section? At least here in Brazil, the deadline was April 18th! If you have any other questions about the exam please, don't hesitate to ask me! :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7320 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 24 25 June 2008 at 11:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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My copy of the Didier Réussir le DALF C1 finally arrived today. I've looked through most of the book and it looks excellent. There are instructions on how to familiarize yourself with each portion of the exam. The exercises don't look too easy or too hard. I'll let you guys know when I get a better look at the book.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nestor317 Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5987 days ago 3 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchC1, Romanian | Message 12 of 24 06 July 2008 at 8:11am | IP Logged | ||
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I took and passed the DALF C1 in June this year at Rosemont College in PA. Before taking that I took the TCF (Test de connaissance du français) which helped me with knowing my level. My TCF score was just short of DALF C2 level so I decided to take the C1. I had lived in France for 7 years back in the late 80s early 90s, left in 1994 for 5 years in Romania, then from 1999 to the present I've been in the US most of the time except for several months a year in France. I did receive a Certificat pratique de langue française form the University in Nancy, France in 1989. I bought Réussir le DALF (and have it for sale if anyone is interested). I went through a couple of the lessons and listened to some of the audio samples on the CIEP web site (http://www.ciep.fr/). The test is intensive – about 6 hours in different segments – but I seemed to have enough allotted time to complete the exercises.
The hardest part of the test in my opinion is responding to audio questions. Even if you understand almost everything (which I did) it seems like there are some trick questions and you miss the nuances. There's a lot of writing so practice writing a short essay for the synthèse you have to do. I also had to write something as if I were a school parent trying to recruit people for parents' group. There was a 1/2 hour conversation part after having studied some related texts for an hour. You read, take notes, then meet with two people for a conversation/discussion. For me that was the easiest part. I think you only need 50/100 to pass the DALF. My score was 86/100. I forget the exact breakdown but the audio part with headphones was the weakest, writing the best, 24/25. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7320 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 13 of 24 07 July 2008 at 10:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Steve, thanks very much for your post. It's very difficult to read about other people's experiences with taking the DALF, especially the new ones that are harmonized to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Congratulations on your excellent score. What were your motivations for taking the TCF and the DALF? Why C1 and not C2? How helpful did you think "Réussir le DALF" was? Do you have any advice for writing the synthèse and the argumentative essay?
I took the DELF B2 about a year and a half ago, and I'm been looking for ways to take my French level up from borderline B2-C1 into the C1 level. I'm particularly weak with listening and vocabulary, so I'm trying to bring those up to speed before attempting the DALF exam. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nestor317 Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5987 days ago 3 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchC1, Romanian | Message 14 of 24 08 July 2008 at 9:45am | IP Logged | ||
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Victor - I did the C1 rather than C2 since I wanted something more certain following my TCF results and didn't want to stretch that much. Also the C1 dispenses you from any language test in French universities or graduate schools. However I was told at Rosemont that there is not a great level of difficulty between C1 & C2 but there is a large jump in difficulty between DELF and DALF. I never took DELF so I don't know that from experience only from what I heard. The book Réussir le DALF helped some but I only did the first couple of lessons. They didn't seem too hard so I thought I'd just take the DALF and see what happened. However if you study the lessons carefully they cover everything you will encounter.
For the writing you need to practice reading some articles on a given subject and then express the main points in your own words. For example, I was given 3 articles on the use of tobacco. I studied them for an hour then had the oral exam for 1/2 hour. I made myself some notes and then interacted with the examiners on the content and my perspectives. The major synthèse was also several related articles on a subject and basically you take them and write a few pages about them with an introduction, development of main points and conclusion. The first exam I did was answering questions based on an article that was fairly difficult in vocabulary and somewhat complicated. Here's will your vocabulary work will help. Watching the French news on France 2 is great for preparing for the audio portions. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sonsenfrancais Groupie United Kingdom sonsenfrancais. Joined 5981 days ago 75 posts - 85 votes Speaks: FrenchC2 | Message 15 of 24 12 July 2008 at 5:03am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi
Yes, I took the original DALF (now the C1) two years ago, and I've just sat the C2. I agree with what others have said about the C1 - it's not too bad. Very old-fashioned by British standards - but that's French education. The listening test is the one most people seem to fear - an audio extract of about eight minutes followed by a series of written questions to find out if you've understood. The standard for the DALF C2 - according to the teachers at Cardiff University is - "impeccable". In practive that means writing a structured 800 word essay with very, very few errors. The listening test is (this year at any rate) no harder thanm the C1, which surprised me very much. A fiftenn minute interview between two very clear speakers. However, you have to give a detailed compte rendu, and a ten minute presentation to two examiners, who expect you to speak fluently. Hope that helps. If you're interested in listening practice, try www.sonsenfrancais.org. I'm updating at the moment with exerpts from films in French graded by difficulty. Regards David Archer 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sammychanforeve Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6070 days ago 43 posts - 51 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Japanese Studies: French | Message 16 of 24 18 August 2008 at 6:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry for being so late to this but...
Sonsenfrancais, did you get your DALF C2 results yet? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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