* Edit (June 2021): Click here for how I actually prepared for DALF C2. Click here for how the exam day went.
DALF C1 preparation course. During your stay in France, in addition to your French courses opt for a DALF C1 preparation course. It’s a good idea to understand what will be expected and thus be ready to deal with the exam. During the preparation course, you will work with your teacher on the four points you will be tested on. Oct 06, 2017 14 ways to prepare for the C1 DALF French exam 1. Do lots of exam practice. The most effective way to practice for an exam is you guessed it, by doing exam practice! Get a textbook designed for the DALF C1. It helps to get a textbook specifically designed to prepare students for the. PASS THE DALF C1. This site has been designed to provide you with tips in English which will guide you towards success in the DALF C1 examination. You will find comprehensive explanations of the different parts of the exam, an updated exam schedule and regular information.
Five months have passed since my last post where I wrote about how it was like taking the French DELF B2 and DALF C2 exams. So here’s an update:
I passed both exams! Now I’m preparing to take the C2 exam in a couple of months. I keep saying this, but it was just 1.5 years ago that I passed DELF A1 barely knowing how to use the present tense. I’ve come so far! But there is never an end to language learning. No time for nostalgia.
Let’s start with the results first:
DELF B2 (November 2020) results
Overall, 79.5/100.0. Not too bad, hoped to have gotten a slightly better score with the listening part. Really happy with the writing and speaking.
DALF C1 (November 2020) results
Overall, 64.5/100.0. I wouldn’t say I was too happy with the score, but I was expecting something even worse than this. About the 8.0/25.0 for the writing part, I was only able to complete the first exercise, the synthèse (summary), and didn’t even get to writing half of the second task. I could’ve done better with the speaking too.
I wish I got a breakdown of the writing and speaking parts, I would’ve loved to know how many points I got in each criteria of the evaluation sheet.
And now… time to prep up for the next challenge!
(DALF C2 prep)
The results and the overall experience of the exams have revealed my strong and not-so-strong points when it comes to these kinds of tests.
Strong areas:
Reading and listening. By having the text and/or the questions in front of me allows me to prepare and expect what is to come. The answers are all inside the text/recording, so all I have to do is to just look for the right answer.
Areas I have to work on:
Debating, explaining, writing (with hand, within a set amount of time). True, I’ve been writing on my computer most of these 1.5 years and there hasn’t been much of a debating/rapidfire-discussion session. I’ll have to work on these two points.
So having these areas in mind, how can I best prepare?
As seen on this site by the French government, and also succinctly explained by Mr. Bruno Milet in this video on youtube (please let me know if I need to take it down, I will comply immediately), the format for DALF C2 is a little different from the other DELF/DALF levels. Allow me to summarise.
As for May, I plan to do C2-specific exercises just on weekends, with my iTalki teacher, solving past papers and possible subjects that are suggested on this blog by Polyglottes (again, please let me know if I should not be mentioning/introducing other people’s works online.)
Preparation Au Dalf C1
Saturday: interview/debate practice in the morning, reading/writing in the afternoon
Delf Dalf
Sunday: text correction and grammatical review
I plan to make another post on my French studying routine during the period starting from September 2019 all the way to April 2021, detailing the intensity/types of lessons, the resources I used, and points I struggled.
Dalf C1 Preparation Book
Til next time!