Taking the Spanish DELE C2 exam - Part 5 - Spoken production

[s_allard]

This was the most enjoyable yet most frustrating past of the whole test. I was first given a choice of two themes. I forget what the other one was but I spontaneously chose El consumo colaborativo y responsable since I had read a lot about these issues. Then I received some materials that consisted of statistics about people's preferences when it comes to sharing things and a short text on current trends in consumer awareness of ethical and health concerns when making purchases. The task was to use this material to make a 6-minute presentation and then in the second part of the test discuss various points with the examiner for five minutes.

After 30 minutes of study, I was called into the exam room where I took a seat across from the examiner. Behind me sat a second examiner who didn't say a word during the whole time.

I was totally prepared for this part of the C2 test because I had been speaking academic level Spanish nearly every day for the past six months. Things got off to a flying start when the examiner first asked me how I was feeling. This was at the very end of a long day. I promptly replied "Me siento pletórico de energía". The examiner was taken aback and replied with a smile "¿Pletórico?". I then explained how I had kept myself busy in the long break between the earlier part of the exam and the test at hand. The key point here is that I had deliberately set the bar for the conversation quite high by using a relatively rare and sophisticated expression.

When we got to the actual presentation I started off with "Escudriñe con much agrado estos documentos porque son temas que me han llamado mucho la atención a lo largo de estos años." I then launched into the distinction between the sharing economy and socially responsible consumption.

My strategy here was based on my own work with language learning students. The level of speaking sophistication of a student is apparent within seconds because people generally speak at a certain level. At a high level of proficiency we focus on reaction time (0 is best), disfluencies, idiomatic expressions, perception and autocorrection of mistakes, precision in the use of vocabulary and the ability to render shades of meaning.

The third part of the test consisted of an informal discussion of a chosen theme, in this case the overwhelming quantity of information available in modern society. No problem, I started off by making the distinction between data and information that I won't bother explaining here. I don't think my examples were the best but I think I did score some points linguistically. I was getting really warmed up to the subject when the examiner abruptly said we had to stop because of time.

I estimate that I spoke for about 12 minutes. That doesn't seem like a lot in order to judge how well a person speaks a language. I felt this was frustrating and somewhat unfair. How can I demonstrate my supposedly vast vocabulary or all those idioms that I was dying to use? I really felt a bit cheated. If I had had another 10 minutes I would have served up some juicy idiomatic expressions and complex grammatical constructions.

But I know the answer. A small sample is all that is necessary because we can safely assume that speaking ability will not vary much in the course of the conversation. What is also important is that there is no prescribed vocabulary or grammar.

[Axon]

Wonderful, wonderful writeups. Thank you very much for posting these!

During the conversation, how much did your examiner speak and what did they tend to say?

[smallwhite]

Thanks for telling us about the Spoken production part.

Taking the Spanish DELE C2 exam - Part 1 - Overview
Taking the Spanish DELE C2 exam - Part 2 - Reading Comprehension
Taking the Spanish DELE C2 exam - Part 3 - Listening Comprehension
Taking the Spanish DELE C2 exam - Part 4 - Written production
Taking the Spanish DELE C2 exam - Part 5 - Spoken production
Taking the Spanish DELE C2 exam - Part 6 - Final thoughts
Taking the Spanish DELE C2 exam - Part 6 - Results

[s_allard]

Wonderful, wonderful writeups. Thank you very much for posting these!

During the conversation, how much did your examiner speak and what did they tend to say?

After the initial pleasantries and explanation of how the test would unfold, the examiner listened to my presentation (5-6 minutes). The only interaction was when I asked how much time I had remaining for the presentation. In the second part, the examiner asked a couple of questions about the contents of my presentation. Finally, in the third part, the examiner again presented the test format and we started discussing the topic in question. I estimated my actual speaking time at around 5+4+4 minutes or about 12 - 13 minutes total.