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[garyb]

Nope, the opportunity to self-correct doesn't matter at all in my case. Actually, not thinking too much while speaking helps a lot and is one of the main reasons of the disparity. My trained "instinct" simply works better than spending a lot of time on each sentence and paragraph. It is partially a psychological issue, just like speaking being the biggest problem for many others..

OMG yessss! That's definitely something I experience. My mind gets it right but then I start to second-guess myself. For me it's worst in German and in Slavic languages. In German due to the painful experiences of classroom learning, and in the Slavic ones because sometimes what I'm saying/writing feels too similar to Russian
And I agree that you definitely shouldn't assume everyone is self-correcting when writing.
Oh and I also think garyb is C1 at least in some skills

I've definitely had the experience here in Canada of meeting people whose oral skills were far better than their written skills. This includes a Korean classmate in high school who spoke largely impeccably, including in terms of her accent, but when I had a look at what she wrote, she showed a strange influence from Korean that I just couldn't detect in her speech. I think she really doubted herself whenever she tried to put something on paper, and unfortunately would often make the poorer choice.

Thanks to all of you for mentioning this idea! Looks like again I was judging too much based on my own experiences with self-correcting and general speaking difficulty, but what you say about instinct and doubt makes sense. Part of my own difficulty with speaking is probably that I don't trust my instinct enough so I try too much to self-correct and find the "right" way to express things, which just lowers my fluency and doesn't even necessarily avoid mistakes...

I'm quite confident that my reading and listening in French and Italian are C1 and have been for years. Maybe writing as well, but I'll play the rusty French card too and say that these days I can still write quite correctly but not as naturally as I once could: my phrasing sometimes feels clunky, like that of a B-level student, and some Italian influence slips in there. But as I say, I judge based on my lowest skill.

[IronMike]

I use the ILR skill levels that I've grown used to since taking my first DLPT in 1987. I've since taken approximately 40 DLPTs in five languages (Russian, Serbian/Croatian, German, Slovenian, Czech) over the years. I have a good feeling for what it means to be able to speak or listen or read at a 2 level, for instance. So for languages I've not taken a DLPT in, or for a language it's been a long time since I've taken the test, I feel I can safely estimate my ILR score.

The one language I've taken a non-DLPT test in is Esperanto. That one scored along the CEFR. How it was different from the DLPT is important: For the DLPT, you take the test and get a score between 0 and 3 with half steps (+) between. For the CEFR test, I had to pick what level test I wanted to take. Additionally, the one I took was on two skills (reading and writing) vice one skill that the DLPT tests.

Which do I like better? Well, the CEFR was shorter in time and gave me scores for two skills. But the DLPT has the benefit that you don't have to guess what your level is prior. Something to like about each. Thankfully, I'm situated that I can still take the DLPT. If I want.

[David1917]

I don't really like doing any self-assessment because it's impossible to be objective with any outside criteria, so I guess the delineation I've made based on my profile is speaking vs. studying. Even though I can speak Chinese pretty well, have functioned in Chinese restaurants around America, made friends with Chinese employees at a mall I used to work at, as well as enjoyed a vacation to China a couple years ago - I still make a few too many mistakes and can't circumlocute everything I want to say. I still just blank.

I have bestowed the distinction onto Spanish & Russian because of the extended amount of time I have spent using these languages. I have used both in professional settings and spent significant amounts of time with native speakers of both. I am still working to improve these, though, as is the quest of any language, including one's native.