DELF B1 listening and reading suggestions

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jeffers
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DELF B1 listening and reading suggestions

Postby jeffers » Wed Jul 07, 2021 9:21 am

I’m preparing to possibly take the DELF B1 (French) exam in June 2022. Currently I have upped my daily reading pace, and I’m reading for pleasure. Right now I’m reading a novel by Musso. For listening I am currently using the Inner French podcast, as well as a bit of TV. Currently I’m watching Lupin series 2, and then reading the subtitles on my Kindle so I can look up unknown words. When I’m a bit further into my Musso novel, I’ll start listening to the audiobook.

I am doing the exam for my own benefit, and I have no intention of switching to “full exam mode” until closer to the examination. However, I would like to hear reading and listening suggestions more closely geared towards helping me with the DELF B1 exam, both the style of reading/listening and for help with content (e.g. for the speaking portion). For example, should I be reading the news or magazine articles? Should I be reading/listening to things describing everyday life? Any specific suggestions? I wouldn’t switch entirely to this sort of thing, but making them a part of my general practice seems like a smart idea.

I found a few sample reading comprehension tasks from the Council of Europe website: https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages/reading-comprehension/-/asset_publisher/BUEgQzZJeNe5/content/bifie-vienna-english-reading-b2?inheritRedirect=false They also have a few sample tasks for listening comprehension.

If anyone has any reading, listening or watching suggestions, general or specific, I would appreciate it.
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Re: DELF B1 listening and reading suggestions

Postby DaveAgain » Wed Jul 07, 2021 9:57 am

RFI and TV5Monde both offer graded exercises on their websites, you could try those.

EDIT
I think the target audience of TV5's weekly news programme, 7 jours sur la planète is language learners, so that would be one.

I used to read a ParisMatch.com article every day, that was partly the absense of a paywall though. :-)
Last edited by DaveAgain on Wed Jul 07, 2021 10:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
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jeffers
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Re: DELF B1 listening and reading suggestions

Postby jeffers » Wed Jul 07, 2021 10:12 am

DaveAgain wrote:RFI and TV5Monde both offer graded exercises on their websites, you could try those.


That's a good suggestion, and I am planning to use the TV5Monde app from time to time. However, are they like the B1 exam? Or are they simply at B1 level?

To be more precise, I'm not looking for books or audio that claim to be at B1 level. I'm looking for things that are like the reading or listening portions of the B1 DELF exam in either style or content.
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French SC Films: 0 / 9000 (0/9000 mins)

DaveAgain
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Re: DELF B1 listening and reading suggestions

Postby DaveAgain » Wed Jul 07, 2021 10:25 am

jeffers wrote:
DaveAgain wrote:RFI and TV5Monde both offer graded exercises on their websites, you could try those.


That's a good suggestion, and I am planning to use the TV5Monde app from time to time. However, are they like the B1 exam? Or are they simply at B1 level?

To be more precise, I'm not looking for books or audio that claim to be at B1 level. I'm looking for things that are like the reading or listening portions of the B1 DELF exam in either style or content.
TV5's mock TCF exam uses actual past papers, so yes I think you can trust their exercises to be both like and at the B1 level.

EDIT
Re: TCF page (If you scroll down to 'serie d'entrainement', you have the option of practising the different skills in isolation, compréhension orale, structure de la langue, compréhension ecrite)
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Re: DELF B1 listening and reading suggestions

Postby smallwhite » Wed Jul 07, 2021 12:24 pm

RFI has some working relationship with TCF and CIEP, but I don't remember how exactly.

https://savoirs.rfi.fr/en/apprendre-ens ... u-francais
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Re: DELF B1 listening and reading suggestions

Postby Pikaia » Wed Jul 07, 2021 1:19 pm

jeffers, I’d have guessed the Inner French podcast is approximately A2 level, but I have only listened to the first 6 episodes. Does the difficulty increase significantly as it goes along?
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jeffers
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Re: DELF B1 listening and reading suggestions

Postby jeffers » Sat Jul 10, 2021 8:42 am

I just found a website created by AF in Novosibirsk with loads of practice questions in all of the four areas, for levels B1 to C2:
https://www.partajondelfdalf.com/

The exercises consist of a brief introduction, and then a PDF of the question, a PDF of corrections, and in the case of compréhension orale questions, an mp3 or video. This should be very useful for anyone looking for exam-style audio and text.

This thread is about listening and reading, but it's worth adding that the website also has a lot of practice tasks for the production skills as well. Each task has a subject page to download which look like exam-style questions, but there are obviously no corrections.
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French SC Books: 0 / 5000 (0/5000 pp)
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Re: DELF B1 listening and reading suggestions

Postby Cavesa » Sat Jul 10, 2021 11:36 am

Given what you read and listen to, I don't think the real reading and listening in the exam will be a problem. However, the tricky part might be the questions. Sometimes, the exams are as much about exam skills than the real skills. So, I'd recommend doing some sample tasks from an exam preparatory book. Coursebooks tend to have DELF like tasks too in them, but why not just get the preparatory book, or borrow it from a library etc. Here is a site with a few sample papers. http://www.delfdalf.fr/delf-b1-sample-papers.html Such practice should get you prepared for the questions. Other than that, reading Musso and listening to Lupin (even with the French subtitles) is already above the B1 level. :-)
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