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French DALF exam | ||
Tags: Diploma/Certificate | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Immersion, Schools & Certificates |  | |
| sonsenfrancais Groupie United Kingdom sonsenfrancais. Joined 5981 days ago 75 posts - 85 votes  Speaks: FrenchC2 | Message 17 of 24 21 August 2008 at 6:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi,
I took the DALF C2 in June (I took the original DALF two years ago). I've just heard that I passed,so I'm very happy about that. As you know, the exam is new, so candidates have a distinct sensation of being guinea pigs. The exam is very, very formal. It's administered by the French Ministry of Education. Your essay needs to be in grammatical, correctly-spelled French (a monolingual dictionary is allowed): but also it needs to be structured in what seems to an English speaker to be a very artificial manner - introduction, first idea, linked to second idea, third idea, conclusion. So a course of preparation and a good text book, is certainly of great help. There is a book 'Reussir le DALF C1/C2' that has lots of essay subjects and specimen answers. It also comes with a CD to give an idea of the listening level required. The Oral is a 10-15 minute radio extract. You have to do a compte-rendu followed by a presentation. Both about 10 minutes. Then a free discussion. Spoken French needs to be pretty good, but the listening level is quite modest. Hope this helps David 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sammychanforeve Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6070 days ago 43 posts - 51 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Japanese Studies: French | Message 18 of 24 21 August 2008 at 1:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Congratulations! Not too many people get to that level, and it is inspiring to know that one can get there with a steady application to study.
I did A-Level French in 1991 (got a grade A, so I was pretty decent at the time), but have not used French since, so I would really need to go back and polish up. Having an exam can be a good motivator. I will probably look into the prep book you mention. Edited by sammychanforeve on 21 August 2008 at 2:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fluve Diglot Newbie Australia Joined 6676 days ago 9 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchC1 Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 19 of 24 04 April 2009 at 10:55am | IP Logged | ||
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I took the C1 last month and while trying to prepare noted there wasn’t a lot of information about the exam so I thought I would share my experiences in the hope that it may be of some help to others.
I only knew I was taking the test about a week before so I didn’t have the time to buy any books or take any preparation courses. However, I have major in French as well as a French girlfriend and I have spent around three months in France. The audio on the listening component is at quite a decent pace, you really have to be on your game to get a good score here. The accents can be a little difficult and sometimes there is background noise or music in the background. However, if you do understand all that is said, the questions are not too hard although I would argue a few of them can depend on a person’s interpretation of what is said. I found this also on the two practice exams I downloaded from the CIEP site. The written comprehension can be quite difficult. The article in my session was written by a well known French sociologist, I was fortunate enough to be quite familiar with his work. However I made quite a few mistakes, I was stupid enough not to read all the questions before answering them and ended up not answering as precisely as was required. I strongly recommend thinking about exactly what you will write for each question before putting pen to paper. While preparing I had a look at the C1 exams for a few other languages and I found that being well-read and well-informed of currents events and debates in France to be very important for the French exams compared to the others. The written comprehension section in my exam was demonstrative of this. The written production component concerned me as I have never written a synthesis and the man in charge of our session in fact said “it is just a stupid French thing that we do.” The letter was easy; I suggest having a few key points and developing them as much as possible within the word limit while using persuasive language. I believe a knowledge of the constructions here is of great advantage eg.. “je ne peux pas m’empecher de penser que” etc. As for the synthesis, I would have really liked to have had some practice here, if there are books that offer examples (I suspect this may be the case) I strongly recommend studying these for I believe the synthesis to be a fine art. My oral exam was a week after the written sections. I was told by the examiner that I was to give a fifteen minute presentation which would be followed directly by a fifteen minute conversation. I was given two rather brief documents which I was to draw upon, but unlike the synthesis, I was allowed to introduce my own thoughts on the subject. I was lucky that I was somewhat familiar with the topic, if not I fear it would have been difficult to speak for fifteen minutes given that the sources provided weren’t sufficient in my opinion. I ended up speaking for around twenty minutes before I was interrupted and told to hurry up, I quickly concluded and we then had a discussion which was very loosely related to the subject of the presentation. I got my results five days (!!) after the oral and I passed. If I had to do it again I would pay more attention to the written comprehension (I only got 14/25) as some of the questions are quite nuanced and require a very deep reading of the text. I also believe that I could have been much better prepared, I now know my local Alliance Francaise offers preparatory courses which I imagine you are effectively coached to the format of the exam. Also, a dictionary is not allowed for the written sections of C1, a monolingual dictionary is allowed for the oral exam. 6 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 20 of 24 05 April 2009 at 6:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks very much fluve for telling us about your experience taking the C1 exam. As I have probably mentioned elsewhere, I've been planning on taking the C1 for a long time, but never felt adequately prepared for it despite having passed the B2 exam over two years ago.
There really isn't that much preparation material for the exam besides Réussir le DALF from Didier. In my opinion, the exercises book from CLE provides too much material that's not needed on the exam. I'm still trying to find an appropriate book geared towards foreign language students that explains in detail how to write a synthèse and a compte rendu. Congratulations on passing the exam! Could I ask why you chose to take the exam? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fluve Diglot Newbie Australia Joined 6676 days ago 9 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchC1 Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 21 of 24 06 April 2009 at 12:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks Victor. I took the exam so that I can do my Masters in Political Science at a French university.
As for the synthese, I did quite well on that section despite never having written one before. My technique was quite simple, I read the documents three times, on the third reading I took all the key points out of each document. I then compared notes to establish what they had in common as usually there is some kind of problem or question at the heart of the documents. With these notes I tried to find two or three smaller issues or elements with which I could organise the synthese. I then wrote all of these out in order and finished with an open ended question. Apparently it is very important that you do not introduce any new material into your synthese. IMHO if you do this and only make a few errors, you should be looking at a reasonable mark. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| arbigelow Tetraglot Groupie Canada Joined 5884 days ago 89 posts - 95 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchC1, German, Spanish | Message 22 of 24 06 April 2009 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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fluve, what university are you going to? I'm really interested in doing an undergraduate and possibly masters at one of the Sciences Po campuses - I'm thinking the Spain/Latin America/Portugal concentration one in Poitiers. How are you finding the application process (visas etc.)?
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| fluve Diglot Newbie Australia Joined 6676 days ago 9 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchC1 Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 23 of 24 06 April 2009 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm applying for Lyon2 at the moment as it is my girlfriend's hometown and the program suits me well for master1. We will see how I go in master1 before deciding master2 but I may look at doing a phd at Sciences Po Paris or Lyon if all goes well and I have a good topic. As for the application process, well where to begin... As an Australian I cannot use the CampusFrance site so I sent a few emails to the person supposedly responsible for admissions and I received no response. I ended up calling the university and making contact with someone who told me to apply as everyone else is in June and the decision will be made in July. I know a few other people who have gone through the student visa process and there wasn't any issues, if time is at a premium I'm considering making an interview at the embassy and applying in person, apparently this can speedne things up considerably. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| RBenham Triglot Groupie IndonesiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5645 days ago 60 posts - 62 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Indonesian | Message 24 of 24 20 June 2009 at 2:13am | IP Logged | ||
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I recently did the DALF C2, and I found only in the exam room that I was allowed to use a monoglot dictionary for the written (maybe for the preparation for the oral, but if so I don't think they told me). I did the exam at the University of Besançon, and they put me in a building which was actively being renovated at the time, and I am talking about jackhammers about 15 metres away. In the end, I did OK, with 87%, but much better in the written than the oral (I wonder why). Even then, I was initially given a very low (just passing) score, until, some months after I enquired why, someone discovered that the written exam was out of 50 rather than 25, and so my written score was doubled.
Fluve, don't be too confident about having no problems getting in to a French university. Generally, anything to do with French and education is impossibly bureaucratic and incompetently administered. I once considered applying to do a master in translation at Paris III--Sorbonne Nouvelle, and they told me I couldn't download an application form or request one by email, but I had to request one by postal mail, and the request had to be posted by 31 December (based on the postmark). This is not the application form itself, mind you, but an application for an application form. Another course I considered doing was a magistère offered by something called the Centre Expérimental de blablabla de la Sorbonne. I had made previous enquiries by email, and received no reply. But, as I happened to be in Paris, I fronted up to the office of this organization myself (just around the corner from the actual Sorbonne building), and got told to go to the Sorbonne with my enquiry. So I headed for the office in question, and found an armed guard checking peoples' staff/student IDs. So I made some further online enquiries, and found that, if I wanted to ask a question, I had to go back to the office that had previously sent me away, ask for a particular form, fill it out and post it. This was only a request for a consultation or something; there was no provision on the form to give any details of the nature of the enquiry. So I filled it out, put it in the envelope, and set out to buy a stamp. As it happened, my hotel was quite near the office the form was addressed to, and I passed it on the way to buy a stamp, and as there was no armed guard at the door, I went in and asked the receptionist if I could deposit my form there, and she replied, no, it would not be considered unless they could see the postmark. (Why? Unlike the Paris-III course, this was only an enquiry, and not subject to a time-limit!) Anyway, I jumped through all their silly hoops, and still never got a reply. On principle, I enquired by email every year after that, until they eventually replied that the course had been closed down. A couple of years later, I saw it advertised online, and so I wrote another enquiry, and actually got an almost immediate reply. They told me that the course had been closed down due to a lack of interest from potential students.... Well, I am not surprised nobody enrolled given the way they made it so difficult. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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