A few days ago, I received my DALF C1 exam results. I scored 17/25 in the speaking section, my second-highest score among the four sections. Some people wanted to know how to improve their French speaking scores, so today I’m going to explain how I rapidly improved from B1 in three months. Since speaking and writing are both forms of output, building up a bank of language material and preparing for the exam reinforce each other, so I’ll discuss them together. The only difference is that speaking focuses on fluency and interaction with the examiners, while writing focuses on spelling and written language.
Preliminary Input
Before discussing exam techniques, I still want to emphasize the importance of preliminary input. We can always produce less information than we can understand through input, so this preliminary stage actually takes longer. There is also a silent period before you can speak fluently—I went through one for about two and a half years, which is quite long. I’ll write a separate post later about how to build up phrases effortlessly during this stage.
Exam Preparation
Build a Bank of Language Material by Topic
For this part, you can give topics to AI and ask it to generate arguments, or you can consider using the set of materials I used—the link is below. You don’t need to memorize anything at this stage. Just go through the material three or four times and retain as much as you can. The main purpose is to familiarize yourself with C1-level phrasing—especially the ability to nuancer, which the DALF values highly—and to build up a collection of phrases.
Practice Different Topics with AI
I started chatting with AI in January. At first, I mainly had casual conversations, but later I began practicing by topic. The advantage is that the teacher is available 24/7, is extremely patient, and provides plenty of emotional support. In the beginning, I had to think for a long time before saying every sentence. After practicing for two months, I could clearly feel that my response time had shortened, I was speaking more fluently, and my vocabulary had also improved. If you get stuck while practicing, learn to express the idea in another way. For example, if you don’t know how to say “elevator,” say, “a machine in a building that helps us go up and down.” This can improve your fluency, and native speakers actually use this method often as well. I started practicing speaking with AI relatively late; if I had begun earlier, I probably would have made even greater progress.
Record Incorrect Sentences and Review Them Repeatedly
This step is extremely important! I made many mistakes while speaking during the previous step, so I would first review them on the same day. The next day, I would copy the short sentences corrected by AI into a notebook and mark the specific expressions I had gotten wrong. I reviewed them on the subway during my commute to work. I usually looked at mistakes from two days earlier, since I could still remember the ones I had made the previous day. By the end, I had gone over almost every incorrect sentence five times. If the material in Step 1 above is the beginning of building up a language bank, this step is about creating your own personal language bank. I think it is even more important than Step 1. The difficult part is that you have to do everything yourself: speak first, then correct your mistakes, and finally remember the new expressions. It is quite mentally demanding.