How to Pass the DALF and DELF Exam

In this article, we’d like to present some useful tools to help you prepare for the DELF or DALF C1 and C2. For these tests, you need an advanced language level. That’s why you should take advantage of all the resources that the internet has to offer. Here, you’ll find some excellent resources on how to pass the DALF and DEFL exam.

Books For the DALF/DELF Exam

CLE International is a French institute that publishes guides you can use to prepare for the DALF or DELF exam. For the DALF, you’ll find two books available on the website—Activités pour le Cadre Commun – Niveau C1/C2 by Corinne Kober-Kleinert, Marie-Louise Parizet, and Sylvie Poisson-Quinton, as well as Nouveau DALF C1 / C2 – 250 Activités by Vanessa Bourbon and Samuelle Chenard. Both of these books are major resources for the exam since they give you pointers and hints as you prepare.

If you can’t manage to get a hold of them, the France Education International website has several different resources to prepare for these exams available on their website. I’d recommend going through the articles based on the test you’re looking for and making a list of unfamiliar words or expressions you want to memorize. There articles are broken down into the various levels of DELF (A1/A2/B1/B2), as well as DALF C1 and DALF C2.

There are 4 sections to the DALF C1 exam, each counting for 25% of your score: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. DALF C2 combines these topics into 2 sections: written comprehension and production, and speaking comprehension and production. In this article we’ll split them into groups like for DALF C2.

Preparing for the Written Test

As we said, these exams have reading and writing portions. The length of time for each section depends on your level of difficulty.

• DALF C1 – 50 minutes for reading and answering questions, and 2.5 hours for writing a 250-word essay.
• DALF C2 – 3.5 hours for both reading and writing.

For DALF C1, the reading potion consists of reading an excerpt and answering questions about it. Then the writing portion is a 250-word essay to ensure you can write quickly and correctly. For both of these, you can read and write to make sure you understand without errors with the help of a French-speaking friend or teacher! For DALF C2, you will be reading a set of documents of up to 2000 words and writing related to those documents (thus the extra time for this exam).

As you may know, French writing standards are very strict, especially in terms of how you organize an essay (introduction, idea 1, sub-idea 1.1, 1.2, idea 2, etc.). Because of this, we suggest first identifying the general theme (ecology, politics, economics, art). Then, determine the main argument presented in the texts. Carefully review each paragraph in order to identify the line of thinking you want to discuss in your essay. Finally, review the most important ideas you want to highlight. Remember to also review vocab like connectors, which are often key elements to written documents (toutefois, en outre, cependant, en revanche, or, certes, néanmois, etc.). These connectors will help you refine your writing and understand the text’s meaning on a deeper level.

Writing summaries in French for the DALF/DELF exam

Remember that the written part can occur one week before the speaking component, so we recommend reviewing for that first. Then, you’ll have extra time to study for the oral exam.

The essay portion is an assignment where you must write either a short essay or a summary of the ideas in several written documents. This exercise is technical and rigorous, so it’s best to practice, practice, practice. Try to work daily on summarizing the main points of newspaper articles from Le Monde, Le Courrier International, etc.

A great question that people often ask: Comment faire un plan? (How should I make an outline?). For a practical guide on making your outline and summary, click here.

For more specifics on how to prepare for each exam, check out the France Education International page about their exams.

Preparing for Listening Comprehension 

The DALF C1 and C2 evaluate students’ ability to listen to long passages that take place in different settings (interviews, classes, conferences, informative media, surveys, etc.). To begin, it’s important to motivate yourself to regularly take advantage of the many resources online that will help you prepare. Remember that the DALF C1 listening section lasts 40 minutes and the speaking section lasts 30 minutes, with each one counting for 25%. The DALF C2 allows for 1 hour to listen and prepare with a 30-minute speaking section.

Check out this article for more French listening comprehension practice.

Recommended Resources

Outside of the official resources and blog posts, there are many other resources online you can use to help you with listening comprehension and speaking through shadowing. Here are just a few of our recommendations:

• The French TV channel TV5 Monde offers tons of resources for reviewing listening comprehension. Under their special section for learning French, “Apprendre le français,” you can watch a news segment called “7 jours sur la planète” which was made for French learners. The news segment also comes with exercises to match your level.
  
• The Radio France Internationale (RFI) provides an exhaustive list of broadcasts that are updated weekly, accompanied by written text that you can use to test your comprehension. Just click on a topic that interests you, or that you want to improve in, and then review the transcript!
  
• For some more fun content , check out T’EN PENSES QUOI? on YouTube. Their videos feature young and old French people who talk about various topics (aliens, graffiti, plastic surgery, where to find…). We recommend this page because the clips are short, and the dialogs provide ample opportunity to hear everyday speech on a variety of themes. You get the chance to hear varying opinions on many of these topics which can help you learn new vocabulary and help you perfect your listening skills.

We hope these suggestions will help you in your DALF/DELF exam endeavors. If you know of other resources that can help those preparing for the DALF or DELF exam, please let us know in the comments.

For More Information

If you’re considering improving your French and getting certificates like these, you may also like these articles:

• Are Language Certificates Useful?
• Resources to Learn French