Prohairesis wrote:Cavesa wrote:I think there is a major discrepancy between the assignment samples in the preparatory books, and the real ones. Not in terms of content, the same subjects get regurgitated over and over again, at least in the science version. But rather in the form of the assignment.
I completely agree with this. For the compréhension et production orales part of the DALF C2, somehow the audio clip I had to summarize and base my arguments on seemed artificial and policé. The general pace was just a notch slower and my notes were surprisingly very complete !
The production écrite part of my exam was more challenging though. The theme was "Des vertus de la paresse", for which I had to write a piece about how work can be a personally-enriching experience but at the same time prohibitive and that we all need to put our work and professional duties into perspective by committing ourselves to socially-beneficial activities.
Well, I think the main discrepancy, and the only one I am complaining about (it is in general completely ok to have different stuff in the preparatory books, as it keeps the exam more objective in regards to the real level of the candidate), is theallowed amount of creativity. In French writing, it is the alfa and omega. Lycéens get failing grades for striving too far from the topic, for including too much of their own material, when it comes to some genres (of course, it is needed for the others). And when preparing, the assigments are usually quite clear like "Make a synthèse. Mix these documents meaningfully together, lead it to some conclusion, but don't you dare to add anything of your own". Similarily, you know pretty clear that you are supposed to write a compte rendu, or a résumé, and you know that suppressing your creativity and staying mostly away from personal opinions, knowledge, or writing style are crutial parts of writing here.
Then in the exam, I was asked to write a magazine article (not sure about the exact wording) about an issue (internet privacy, or the internet of things or something like that), based on the dossier. An article. My main problem: "Are they just using a nicer word for synthèse, or am I actually supposed to write a full longer magazine article, including some the non-synthèse bits (what we seen in the magazines: an introductory anecdote, adequatly incorporated opinion or opening further questions of the reporter based on his specialty), am I allowed to branch out and include knowledge from the tons of other recent articles on the issue, or add a quote by someone not in the dossier texts?
The problem is not the task being hard, that is correct. The problem is not that there was nothing exactly like that in the books. The problem is being trained for a few very specific genres, and than given a different one requiring sometimes the exact opposite from the practiced one.
This is why I love experience of other people, I am especially interested in the preparatory books and similar resources they had used, and their comparation with the real experience. From what I am reading here, it looks like the German books may be much more faithful to the exam itself.
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AlOaf, thanks. This was a great piece of information to draw from. It must have been awesome, to get such a motivating and challenging speaking partner.
If only it was easy to find such more often. I trully think German and English are two major exceptions on the market, due to the sheer amount of learners (German mostly in Europe, ok) and the developped support system for the more advanced learners (compare with French, which got the first officially C level general coursebook just a few years ago, where there are few C2 candidates, and the general idea many courses and teachers further spread is "French is such a hard langauge, you are unlikely to learn it well anyways, at least without moving to the country."). The Germans really take learners seriously.
When I was trying to find a tutor or a speaking partner before my C2 French exam, I had a real problem. Even if I wanted a group class, which I didn't, there was none. Most tutors (both private and in langauge schools) were the "I am very patient and awesome for beginners" kind, sometimes officially saying they prefer lower levels (at least they didn't pretend anything). Many tutors had lower qualification than the C2 exam, only a Master's degree in French. Yeah, it is officially supposed to be C2 (+tons of literature and cultural theory), but the students of the program that I've met trully didn't seem to be that far. Getting an exchange partner is almost impossible for a native Czech. And there were no were obviously no other C2 preparing students around. Even the tutor I got, who was much more competent than the rest (a native, an engineer (therefore confident about my Science version choices, unlike all those tutors with humanities degrees), having prepared people for other exams and inteviews). But still, I was his first DALF C2 student and another guy his first DALF C1 student.
Yes, great quality tutors, study buddies, practice and exchange partners, those are great. But unfortunately, those are pretty rare (there was recently a long thread about it), and the rest is useless.
This is something I love about learning German. All the resources. I am much more likely to find study buddies, to find advanced resources, to find even a capable tutor, should I want one.
schlaraffenland wrote:Cavesa wrote:I would be curious to know, how many candidates do each of the exams, the levels, and the results. There surely must be some statistics, I just doubt they're publicly available.
Those statistics would be really interesting to me, too. I have absolutely no clue what's typical, except for anecdotal asides from my teachers in Germany here and there, very much based on gut feeling.
Exactly. It is weird as there would be absolutely nothing bad about publishing the data, it could even be a nice marketing touch (Instead of "it is useful, many people take the exams", it would be "12635 learners considered the exam useful last year, 12598 put their success on the CV, join their ranks". And CEFR is a european project, the bureaucracy in general loves tables, doesn't it? And aren't Germans stereotypically supposed to be meticulous about data keeping and organizing?