This blog is about my personal experience attempting the DALF C1 exams in January 2015 in Alliance française de Katmandou. I scored 54/100 but I know I could have done much much better.
The Background:
I did not take preparation classes with a teacher for these exams and this was a mistake, because the last serious French class I had taken was in March 2013. Then directly in June 2014, I did a 10-day preparation course in Kathmandu intended for DELF B1 candidates as I got ready to give the DELF B2. I scored 74 in the B2, and I had no intentions to aim higher. But that changed when Ophélie who was director of AFK at that time said with shining eyes during the intermission of a Mongolian film screening
'Et maintenant, le C1!!'
'Oh non non'
'Mais pourquoi pas'
And I thought to myself 'Why not? It's also perhaps the only way for me to keep an interest in the language before I start wandering over to Italian.'
And so I decided to attempt the C1, six months after the B2. My ex-professor Gégé warned me against going blindly into the DALF C1. She stressed on going through past sample papers to know what was expected of me.
I also had with me the Echo A1, A2, B1 and B2 books as brushing up on basics can never be a bad thing but I found myself unable to concentrate. I had to turn to aural and visual stimuli (music and film).
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A few weeks before the exam, this is what I did to prepare myself.
(Note: This is in no way a recommendation for you to follow the same because I consider formal training the best method to achieve best results)
- I watched every single day the film,"De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté" (The Beat That My Heart Skipped) that a friend Kamel shared with me. No one advised me to watch it for a good DALF preparation, and in fact, there is more slang to be learned here than refined language. (words like 'bouffer', 'nanas' 'fous-moi la paix', 'je veux du ble' etc) I watched it with sub titles so that it would help prepare me for the production ecrite part. (to get spellings/grammar/syntax right).
- Whenever I was not consciously 'studying', I listened to a song from the same film by Telepopmusic called Breathe. Again, no direct connection with French learning but it helped at some sublime level I guess, drawing me into the film with Roman Duris and his Chinese piano teacher Mao Lin, the real estate brutes he worked with, their affairs with women, his complicated relationship with his father. Evidently, my love for French has been sustained though its popular culture.
-While walking through the streets for weeks before the exam, I would listen to the sound documents and exercises on my mobile phone from previous ECHO B1 and B2 modules. Even while doing chores, I'd let the documents play in the background. I did not always pay attention but I knew that my unconscious mind was registering everything. Gégé was the prof who encouraged students to do this during our apprentissage in A2.
- I met up often with my ex French teacher Nicolas who is also a good friend I have volatile discussions with. We hold opposing views with regards to feminism, rights of minorities, LGBT rights, women, patriarchy, etc. And so, I finally realized that you learn better when you argue because you have to present your point of view, be ready to be attacked, defend your views, resort to some name-calling. (just kidding). And above all, possess the vocabulary in order to do all of this. If I had spent more time discussing with him over more diverse subjects such as the economy, banks, financial markets, etc, I would have performed better I guess.
- He also loaned me a book with DALF C1 exercises, and offered to correct my essays, but I ended up only paying attention to the oral comprehension exercises.
- I watched 'Freddie Mercury The Great Pretender' with French subtitles quite often. The narration is in English but the sub titles in French run slowly and helped with regards to tenses as the plot oscillates back and forth into Mercury's childhood, his aspirations, future plans, etc.
- A few weeks before the exam, Ophélie had told me one needs to be 'cultivé' (cultivated) to pass the DALF C1. She was right because this was not a simple test of speaking and understanding French. The exercises are very directly related to life in France, the economy, culture, etc. So I started to read articles online from Courrier Internationale, Le Monde, etc. Those days, the current news was that of Charlie Hebdo with numerous articles centered around freedom of expression, secularism, terrorism, Laïcité, etc.
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Why I suggest taking a preparation course in an institute like Alliance Française or any other:
- You will know exactly where you currently stand as far as your level is concerned.
- You will know your strengths and weaknesses, and in fact work on both. If 'production ecrite' is your forté, work on it not just by doing more exercises but learning new vocabulary, expressions, jargon etc.
- Your teacher can assess and guide you.
- Doing a mock DALF with a teacher is the only way you'll truly realize how (mis)management of time can make or break you. Trust me when I say that the DALF C1 is challenging even for French native speakers.
- Chances are you will score higher if you take a prep course than if you studied yourself like I did.
Note: I studied myself and ended up with 54 points. This is not so reassuring because the pass mark is 50. If I took the prep course and started my preparations a whole six months in advance, I could have scored 70 or more. However at the time, passing the DALF at the first attempt was more important than scoring highly. Misplaced priorities, I know.
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Let's get right into the exam:
The four main parts to DALF C1 are:
ORAL COMPREHENSION
ORAL PRODUCTION
WRITTEN COMPREHENSION
WRITTEN PRODUCTION
I have hyperlinked all the above links to a website I found immensely helpful.
The written exam started at 8:30 am and went on till 12:30 pm.
Those four hours fly by like you could never imagine. It's 9am and after 2 minutes, it's 9:30am.
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ORAL COMPREHENSION
It starts with a long recording like an interview. I had three minutes to first read the questions. I read them to get a gist of the interview but did not try to memorize the questions. Instead, I tried to identify the key words and then waited for the 2nd recording. I took down down notes in a terrible handwriting while it played after which I had three minutes to answer the questions. The document was then played for the second time, after which five minutes were given to answer the questions.
Challenges:
- There are often more than 2 people speaking, and the voices intermingle to confuse the listener. The questions can be direct, 'What does Dominique think about Carla Bruni?'. However Dominique's answer could be interrupted several times by Emmanuelle and Eulalia offering their own views. Be prepared for this possibility.
- The answers are not readily found in the sound document as in the A1. (What time does the train leave for Brussels?) Often, the answers are implied. You could even be asked to interpret the overall tone/mood of the artist who will not necessarily say things like 'Je suis épuisé', 'fâché', etc.
- The accents of the speakers could be Parisien, or Québécois or Marseillais or even Belgian. They could be people from the DOM TOMs being interviewed and not just the Metropole. A good way to get habituated to a variety of accents is to watch programs on TV5 Monde and Francophone cinema.
- Often in the sound documents, there is music in the background or even noises of train station/airport announcements. You have to prove your ability to comprehend the language just like natives do (even in noisy settings such as the Marais on Saturday night)
- So now the question is not just understanding what is being said but retaining the information to answer the questions. Can you possibly memorize everything that has been said for a whole eight minutes? This is why the preliminary reading of the questions in the first three minutes and the identification of keywords are important. Make sure to jot down legibly.
- Devise a code form or abbreviations to note down as much as possible while the speaker speaks. It's true that being cultivated and knowledgeable about France and the world in general helps. So if the speaker says 'The French overseas departments are Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyane and the Réunion.', you could just note down DOM - G,M,G,R. A person well-versed in French affairs will not struggle at this point ('What what Martini?! Reunion is meeting?')
- Even though I missed out on some answers, I still chose to answer the questions as I did not want to leave it blank. I do not necessarily recommend this as it could backfire as the answer could be way off the mark and the examiner will know you are taking a 'shot in the dark'. I leave this up to an evaluator to comment upon.
Excelling the Oral Comprehension:
- Work on as many exercises as possible from previous C1 exams. You will be directly confronted by the challenging sound documents with all their abundant 'pieges' (traps).
- Several months before the exam (and not one month), start to listen to French radio. I strongly suggest radio over TV channels because the Comprehension Orale functions in the same way as radio: you can only hear what is being said, as opposed to TV which offers visual clues.
RFI is available on the internet and there are podcasts too.
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WRITTEN COMPREHENSION
What should normally be the easiest part can be tricky because the documents are written in a very high level of French. If you are not used to reading excerpts from journals, essays by 19th century writers, prefaces to books, you could be left floundering especially with meanings of words and with breaking down the complex sentences. Moreover, the writings are not always straightforward and lucid as they are in news reports and magazine articles. They are sometimes decorative and poetic.
Fifty minutes are allotted to this section.
I noticed that in DALF C1, the entire premise of the questions are based on an implicit understanding of the text. Questions like,'What does the author mean by saying, 'J'en ai assez'. It's not enough to explain the meaning of the expression but to detail reasons why he is annoyed. Those answers won't necessarily be found in the same paragraph but will require a thorough understanding of the article in its entirety.
There are also multi choice questions which serve more to confuse than help, because all the answers sound equally right or wrong. Often, marks are given only after the answer is justified.
The best preparation in addition to solving previous exam papers would be to be exposed to different writing styles.
Very important is to understand French idioms. What does it mean, 'Il ne perd pas le Nord'. A literal translation serves no purpose. Look up sites with idioms and expressions, and ask French native friends for meanings of commonly used phrases.
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WRITTEN PRODUCTION
The choice is between Humanities & Social Studies and Science. I chose the former.
This section is allotted 2 hours 30 minutes which fly by quickly.
I wish I had gone through the grid of evaluation for the C1. (Corrigé et Barème) This is useful as you know exactly how an evaluator will grade your work.
The first part is the Synthese de Documents and the second is Essai Argumente. You can click on both links for details.
Personally, I enjoyed this exercise the most. The idea of reading 2-3 documents comprising 1000 words, extracting relevant information, and presenting it coherently in 220 odd words was challenging and fun.
Some tips for Sythese de Documents:
- Learn French connectors to ensure a logical flow of ideas between paragraphs. Here's a useful link.
- Pick out the the most pertinent points in all the 2-3 texts, but do not copy them directly. It's up to you to present all these points in a coherent summary.
- Do not introduce your own ideas, impressions or judgements. You're graded on this parameter.
- Use a varied range of vocabulary and sentence construction to rephrase what has been written. It should appear effortless. Instances where chunks of sentences have been copied or edited very lightly will go against you.
- At the C1 level, evaluators don't take to spelling errors and careless mistakes very kindly.
- I unnecessarily lost out on points because I did not respect the word count. They take this very seriously and every word is counted. I overwrote and even got negative marks!
'Dans le cas où la fourchette ne serait pas respectée, on appliquera exceptionnellement une correction négative : – 1 point par tranche de 10 % en plus et en moins.'
Essai Augmente
Click here for the evaluation grid for Essai Augmente:
And here for detailed information
The Essai Augmente has normally to be written in 250 words in the form of a letter, article or proposal where an opinion needs to be presented. You'll need to evaluate, justify, defend or recommend a given idea. You can source ideas from the 2-3 articles presented in the Synthese de Documents. Again, take care not to copy or simply rephrase texts.
- Try to insert new ideas and break free from the Synthese de Documents texts.
- While defending an opinion, give examples to back it up. You will not necessarily find them in the previous texts. With regards to me, it was at this time, I realized Ophélie was right about being more cultivated while attempting the C1. For eg, if the topic was about the liberty of expression, and if the exam was held in 2012, only a candidate knowledgeable in French affairs could cite the example of Charlie Hebdo's cartoons. After January 2015, it anyway became a global outrage. Bottom line being, immerse yourself in French current affairs. Even if your writing skills are not fantastic, your knowledge and passion for French culture will impress your evaluator. (This advice holds especially true with an evaluator who is French. I can't say the same if s/he is a native of your country)
- You will be graded on how fluid, well-structured and clear your essay is. Paragraphs, spelling and punctuation are important, as well as the clever use of idioms, vocabulary and sentence construction.
- Read analytical essays, magazines, and learn the use of connectors. This page contains useful connectors to present and develop ideas, to make concessions, to define consequences, to establish comparisons, etc.
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PRODUCTION ORAL
I learnt the hard way that this section is not just a test of speaking but also written comprehension.
I was ask to pull out two pieces of paper with topics written from several, and choose one of them. One topic was 'Should bosses be paid so highly?' and the other was 'Happiness.' I selected the first and then settled down to read the documents. I do remember it was quite cold that January morning, and the director of pedagogy Benoit was kind enough to himself move my desk and chair towards the window where there was a warm morning sunlight coming in.
The one hour of preparation time sped by. The documents spoke about the global and French situation with regards to obscenely high salaries earned by CEOS of companies. Again, the language was of a high level and contained several financial terms (percentage of taxation, inflation, forces of demand and supply)
So much for choosing Humanities & Social Studies !
Let me repeat that one hour for preparation passed in ten minutes. I highlighted a few points in the document. When I was ready, I presented the outline of my exposé and introduced the source of the documents and what they were all about. Then I spoke out against CEOs having such high salaries. I seemed to have taken a position against them and yet there were times I thought inside my head, 'CEOS who run billion dollar corporations with 1000s of employees probably deserve that salary. After all, if the company sinks, he sinks taking along the rest. But if he performs well, they all stay afloat. Them and their families and children'
The discussion with the jury was not too bad, and later my evaluator told me I lost points for saying 'minimum wage'. I don't know what got into me as I knew all about 'le salaire minimum' and SMIC. Truly, a battle of nerves.
Preparations for the DALF C1 Production Oral:
- Before the exams, while speaking to French native friends, don't let them do all the speaking, and don't fall into the trap of responding only with interjections like this guy below in the video. Words like mais attends, mais quoi, zut, Ooooh la la -- this won't help at all because the most important part of the exam is the 'monologue suivi' which means you will be doing all the talking.
The jury will watch you. If you get repetitive or start to read word-by-word from the document, they might roll their eyes, stretch their limbs, or tap their foot vigorously. And this can be very destabilizing. Reticent candidates who are good listeners and tend to listen more than they speak in daily conversations, take special note. You will run into a wall if you run out of things to say too soon. It's a 30 minute exposé.
- During the preparation, note down as many examples as possible to support your argument because they will come in handy.
- During your preparation weeks, I strongly suggest speaking to French native speakers who will speak with the right intonation, pronunciation, vocabulary, etc. This is also a sort of practice for the discussion you will have with the jury where oral comprehension will come into play. They will throw questions at you, and will speak in a level fitting for a C1 candidate. This is not the time to say to respond with, ' Bon bhein.... euuuh'.
- If you don't have anyone to practice with, talk to yourself in your room. Do you like the way you sound? If no, you might want to work on that. It's embarrassing when the jury have to ask you to repeat what you thought was a perfectly-pronounced sentence.
- During the exam while reading of the text during your one hour preparation time, don't miss out on pertinent points. Highlight them and speak about them or the jury will point this out to you. If you show a complete ignorance of what they are referring to, you are giving away the fact that you've not read the document properly. This is why Production Orale in DALF C1 also tests your Written Comprehension skills.
- Regardless of whether you choose Science of Humanities, familiarize yourself with terms in medicine, finance, cinema, banking, love, food, animals, human rights, natural catastrophes, religion, etc. This is not just a test of 'French-speaking' and writing but in a way, an evaluation of whether you are a brute or a cultured person. (Ok, maybe I exaggerate a bit)
- Don't forget your own country. In the race to learn all things French, you'll also need to know what is happening in your country. Both of my jury were French and they posed several questions regarding the salary of CEOs and big bosses in my country. Also asked questions about the existence of a minimum wage, about taxation brackets in India. If you display a knowledge about how things go in your country, it facilitates the jury discussion making it a form of cultural exchange too. Even if you make slight errors in tenses or sentence construction, being knowledgeable about the subject will certainly help.
And those 30 minutes will pass soon. I speak from experience.
Have a look at the evaluation grid for Production Orale here:
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I highly recommend Alliance française Kathmandu whether to pass an exam, to take language classes, to enjoy an evening of music (they have an excellent cultural programming), to drink the best milk coffee in Kathmandu, and to play a game at their Ludotheque. Not to forget the poster boys of AFK, the dogs Choco and Fifi. Make sure to meet them on your next voyage to Nepal :-)
Good luck with the DALF C1! As for me, I'm not sure where my language adventures takes me but I will never forget the people (actors/musicians/teachers/classmates/acrobats/writers) who played a role in my French learning, the pursuit of DELF/DALF, my love and interest in the Francophone world.
And you E*, who sent me Paul Verlaine's Green one birthday: the most beautiful poem I never knew until then. For this was where it all started..
