How to improve my listening so I can pass a C1 DALF listening section

[Sarafina]

I have two French tutors on Italki. One is heavily centred on helping to pass my IB HL French oral exam which I need to do extremely well in. The other is just to get some French speaking practice that isn't centred around passing a specific exam. French B HL is meant to be the equivalent of a B2 (although there's some dispute about that).

Ahh the IB. Boy, do I not miss that at all! Good luck with it!

You did the IB! The struggle! What were your highers? Did you do IB in England? Honestly I underestimated how time-consuming the IB would be. HL French is no joke.

[Sarafina]

-To transcribe a video from Le Monde YouTube channel. It's challenging because they don't have subtitles that I can double check without. Maybe after I've finished my attempt to a transcription. I would ask on Italki if anyone is willing to transcribe the video although I don't know if many people (if any) will be willing to do this.

I can transcribe a video (<5min) for you! I've always enjoyed a good dictée. The other option of course would be to have people just directly check your transcription with the video.

Merci beaucoup

[Cavesa]

Thank you so much. Would you suggest that I get rid of subtitles all entirely or is it okay to use French subtitles if the video I watch has that option? I've found some TV series in French that I enjoy watching and I have already started watching it. But I wonder if there's any other supplementary listening comprehension activities I should be doing. So I already watch each episode and I try to concentrate as intensely as possible. But should I try to transcribe what I say? Do I need to listen to any episode for than once?

Yes, get rid of the subtitles. Without them, you will really practice listening, not reading. Whether you get rid of thim a bit later or earlier is not such a big deal, in my opinion. If you spend a few hundred hours on listening, it doesn't matter whether you use subtitles for 10 or 20. But not much longer, there are lots and lots of people who get stuck with subtitles. It is extremely common for English learners. I know lots of people who can watch with English subtitles, but never progress from there, as they simply cannot stand the initial "shock".

"Trying to concentrate as intensely as possible" is not what I would recommend. You are trying to immerse yourself in the language, not become a Jedi. Concentrate on the content. Get stuff you are interested in and concentration will be much easier.

Transcription is impossible at full speed. And anything but full speed is not enough. So, I don't recommend transcription, unless you are able to type very fast. But even then, it partially removes the advantages of extensive listening, as you focus on typing a lot instead of focusing on what is being said and how it is being said.

What IS a good exercise, even though I definitely wouldn't do it for too long time, otherwise you are no longer practicing listening: repeating after the actors. Repeating the sentence, the tone, the accent, even the mimics if it helps. That is a nice exercise for an intermediate or advanced learner, from my experience. Such phrases are not unlikely to emerge automatically, when you need them.

Rewatching is possible but I personally don't do that. One of the main points of a series, compared to movies, is the fact stuff gets repeated. And already knowing the series in question helps a lot, so it is not that needed to rewatch anything.

I can transcribe a video (<5min) for you! I've always enjoyed a good dictée. The other option of course would be to have people just directly check your transcription with the video.

A dictée is a very good exercise for various things, but I definitely wouldn't recommend it for listening practice. There are good sites with dictées online, and I find them very useful for stuff like ortograph. But the audio is slower. But in general, dictées are great. But almost impossible at full speed, as I wrote above.

I've created a listening timetable/schedule based on the advice given. If there's any gaps or areas in my listening schedule that you feel I'm neglecting, please let me know. I just want to know if it's long the right lines. Further criticism is more than welcome.

-To watch a video from 7jours YouTube channel which I think is part of TV5monde. Each video is a different interview about a specific topic. It's really interesting and informative. It has French subtitles. This can be part of my intensive listening practice in which I make sure that I understand the grammatical constructions and vocabulary. Then repeating it over and over again without looking at the French subtitles.

-Listen at least of one episode of a Franceculture podcast

-To binge-watch TV series in French: I am currently watching Marseille, The Break and Call My Argent (which are available on Netflix with relatively accurate French subtitles). I'll be watching those shows with French subtitles.
However for TV series such as Le Monde Incroyable de Gumball, LA FORÊT DE L’ÉTRANGE, Adventure Time and ATLA, I am currently watching those shows without any subtitles as well as write a summary/review of what I watched. Although I wish I could do it for each TV series I watch- I am aiming to write at least one summary each day and record myself discussing what I thought about it.

-To transcribe a video from Le Monde YouTube channel. It's challenging because they don't have subtitles that I can double check without. Maybe after I've finished my attempt to a transcription. I would ask on Italki if anyone is willing to transcribe the video although I don't know if many people (if any) will be willing to do this.
-To transcribe videos from a playlist I created on YouTube which is a random complication of French videos I've liked. Thankfully all of them have French subtitles that I can use to double check.
-Follow along French audio-books on my to-read list (which are L'Étranger, Madame Bovary, Candide ou l'Optimisime, Les fleures du mal)

-I try to listen various French youtubers mainly Cyprus North, Golden Moustache, Ginger Force, Le Tatou and Squeezie. My plan to listen to each video at least 3 times. First time to enjoy it with the French subtitles. Then note down any unknown words (eventually look out the meaning and add to Anki). Then watch without any subtitles as many times as my patience will be allow it. Is this order right?

-I am on the second episode of Balados which is a French Canadian podcast about Canadian history. It's over an hour long. It's not so something I can do everyday but I can listen to it on the Friday, Wednesday and the weekends

-To to listen to Journal en français facile by Savoir.rfi

(I have two French tutors on Italki. One is heavily centred on helping to pass my IB HL French oral exam which I need to do extremely well in. The other is just to get some French speaking practice that isn't centred around passing a specific exam. French B HL is meant to be the equivalent of a B2 (although there's some dispute about that). I can comfortably take a B2 reading paper. When I looked at some sample C1 reading paper- I understood most of it. However my listening is at B1. The disparity between my reading ability and my listening is probably the most frustrating because I understand almost everything when I then read the transcription which makes me kick myself at how I sometimes struggle transfer my knowledge of those words to understanding/recognising them when they are spoken).

This looks like a good plan. But the disparity between reading and listening is significant and that is exactly why I recommend extensive listening without any writing activity connected to it. Your list of activities looks very good at the B1 level, I am sure you will progress fast to the more advanced stuff. When you are trying to get to C1, it will be time to get rid of vast majority of stuff labeled "facile" "for learners" and so on.

What I may not have recommended enough: while I recommend pure listening, I am in no way saying other activities won't help it. Improving grammar or vocabulary in general, reading, all that helps too and your listening skills will draw from that.

Audio books are a very good option at the B1 level, as they are slower, read by one person, and that one person was chosen because they can read in a beautiful way. However, I think your choice of books may be a bit problematic, at least if you read only classics. Variety is necessary and the more, if you want to use contemporary French. Classics are great, but today's authors are a must. And lower genres, which I don't know whether you like, are an excellent resource on various registers that classics usually don't include. The problem is getting the audiobooks, due to stupid geoblocking, I suppose the classics are easier to get.

edit:found a mistake

[Cavesa]

As usual for this forum there's too much emphasis on the numbers and little mention of quality as well as quantity. 300 hours of listening doesn't mean a whole lot in itself when there are factors like how comprehensible the materials were, how much attention was being paid (there's a whole continuum between extremely focused active listening and useless background listening), whether subtitles were present, etc. But no, people just want to know how many hours and how many words to reach a certain magic point.

I can't agree more. The real issue isn't the number of hours; it's the effectiveness of the process. Here's how I would approach this whole question of preparing for the DALF C1 comprehension test.

First of all, I find out what exactly is required in terms of the speaking style and typical content. Here is a website with some examples of recordings used for this test: http://www.delfdalf.fr/exemples-sujets-dalf-c1.html

Not surprisingly, we find out that the kind of French used is typically radio or television journalism reporting. It's not fictional television series or movie dialogs. So we now know what to prepare for.

With the vast wealth of material available on the Internet, I would make about 10 varied recordings of approximately 5-8 minutes each of material similar to the sample tests. Then make detailed transcripts of these recordings. Many of these recordings from Youtube probably have subtitles.

If possible, I would study the transcripts with a tutor to make sure I understand the contents, the vocabuary and the grammatical constructions.

Then as part of my regular practice routine, I listen to a couple recordings a few times with and then eventually without the transcripts. After a few -l et's say 10 - repetitions, I find I sort of know the recordings by heart. That's the whole point. After a while the material becomes totally transparent.

Then from time to time I listen to new material. There will of course be some new vocabulary but I see that I can understand nearly everything.

What's the theory behind all this? It's all based on the very well-known idea that in any language a very tiny number of distinct linguistic units constitute a large number of all the units in a sample. This is even more true within a given genre of speaking or writing such as television reporting. So a few samples are all that it takes to get a broad idea of the language generally used.

I suggested about 10 recordings of 5 - 8 minutes. These numbers are not cast in stone. One could do 15 or 20 recordings but the idea is to get a wide variety of subjects and voices.

The real issue is a very good foundation and varied experience. You simply cannot include much variety in a few dozen hours, and definitely not in 20 short recordings. But a few hundred hours are a different story. That is actually a part of the DALF, the exam is trying to test a situation that is not rehearsed. No matter how efficient you are, you cannot get ready for unexpected situations without having vast experience.

The typical content is not the only thing one should study. You cannot do even that properly with that few recordings. Plus it is quite reasonable to really want the skills and not just the exam. It is also rather risky to stick to the model exams and preparatory books too much, they are not the real exam. Yes, they are a needed part of preparation and you need the "DALF taking skills" too. But I have seen people taking C level exams (DALF and CAE), who were really struggling and complaining the real exam was different from their preparatory books. And they didn't sound like they had the skills the CEFR scale expects the learner to show in real life.

Real life is not a series of tiny journalism bits, and I am a strong believer in studying both for an exam and the real life. But even the exam is not just about those journalism samples. Unlike most people in the discussion, I actually passed a DALF. And my listening task was a discussion about the public discussion of enviromental issues and natural disasters, which is something a bit more complex than most sample audios on the internet or even in the preparatory books, for example due to the number of speakers. I was extremely grateful for my tv series preparation, I think Eureka was a particularily good piece of training.

Don't forget that listening skills are also a part of the speaking exam. Just like in the real life, listening is an extremely important and often underestimated part of speaking, except for delivering monologues. The examiners will use normal language with a C1 or C2 candidate, and they won't sound like a journalist podcast. They are very likely to diverge from the original direction a bit, reactions to unexpected twists are part of the exam. And understanding what they are asking about is sometimes not that easy. Both C levels are about expressing opinions, logical arguments, and nuances, so you need to understand the questions and reactions really well. Unlike in the listening exam, these "bits of listening" are short. And you need to react immediately.

A tutor can be very useful for speaking and writing. Not necessary but definitely useful, if you can find a good one in the flood of crap ones. But you usually don't need a tutor to know you understand. Either you understand or you don't. When you are not sure, there is google (just googling a combination of words can give you a lot of other examples), there are dictionaries, grammar books, everything.

Yes, highly colloquial language is likely to pose more problems. But if DALF is just about sterile journalism examples, such language is unlikely to be there.

No, knowing recordings by heart is not the point. The point is listening comprehension. The point is to understand as completely as possible, with as much nuance as possible, and to interpret the audio well enough to answer questions about it, to sum it up, or to rephrase it. That has nothing to do with memorisation. Memorisation of such kind can be useful for speaking, I suppose. But it has very little to do with listening comprehension. And as the real DALF format is the huge point of this post, you won't have time to memorise by relistening. You need to understand asap. Only immediate comprehension without dissecting the stuff leaves enough space for focus on the tasks and questions. Because the questions and their format is likely to be (and should be) more tricky than the recording itself. Relistening a dozen times may be an interesting complementary exercise, but it simply cannot be as useful as extensive listening.

Of course, if you memorise a few hundred samples, it is very likely to work, some people have great results with memorisation drills. But it simply cannot work with a small amount of samples.

Yes, the dissection method with a tutor is likely to be a majority choice. That's what people paying the overpriced and inefficient preparatory classes do. They usually pass I suppose, but they tend to complain a lot about the listening part of their exam, even more than about writing. I found it the easiest of the whole thing. And listening used to be my weakness, back when I was at highschool and therefore practicing the dumb way. Extensive listening changed that.

edit:a mistake

[s_allard]

I think Cavesa has made some good points about study strategies for passing the DALF C1 listening test. We differ on certain issues and particularly on my suggestion of using a strategy of repeatedly and analytically listening to a selection of relatively short samples of typical exam material.

Let me first say that what I'm suggesting is in no way incompatible with lots of extensive listening. Hell no, that's the fun part of understanding a language. The question is how to get there.

As I mentioned in my post, my approach is based on two ideas. First of all, what kind of spoken French is required for the test? This we know quite well. So, it makes sense to concentrate on mastering the specific genre of French required.

The second idea is that the spoken language particularly is linguistically highly repetitive. Sure the vocabulary will vary according to the subject but the phonetics and the grammar tend to be similar within a given speaking genre. So, the strategy here is to concentrate on developing a very good understanding of a selection of samples by closely studying their construction. For this a transcript is essential. And preferably access to a tutor with whom one can discuss and clarify technical issues.

Why listen to a sample repeatedly until some form of memorization sets in? Actually, the goal is not to memorize the sample. Actually it is to be able to spontaneously and totally decode the language being spoken. The idea here of course is that this skill will be useful when the listener is confronted with new material that is fundamentally quite similar.

As always, I like to give specific examples. Here is a link to a sample DALF C1 test.

http://www.delfdalf.fr/_media/exemple-1-sujet-dalf-c1-audio-2-comprehension-orale.mp3

I have transcribed the first 16 seconds, as follows:

Le mot de la fin ce soir, c’est : Quand on aime, on ne compte pas. En Chine un litchi était vendu 67 000 euros. Bon, (il) provient d’un arbre quatre fois centenaire qui autrefois servait à nourrir les empereurs de Chine. Celui ou celle qui a acheté ce litchi est vraiment très attaché à l’histoire. C’est un fruit de la passion.

There is a lot going on in these 16 seconds. Every sentence is a teaching moment. For example, I would draw the listener's attention to how in "servait à nourrir" the verb servir requires the à preposition when followed by a verb in the infinitive. There's a whole lesson there in the use of French verbs with prepositions.

With the exception of "litchi", a certain kind of fruit, all the words here are very common in French. So are all the grammatical constructions. Therefore, all the linguistic knowledge learned here will most likely be called upon when the learner is confronted with new material.

I should also point out here that the speaker is making a somewhat subtle play on words and this is why this recording is included in a C1 test

Obviously, I'm not saying that 16 seconds of French is all you need. But I will maintain that if you understand the workings of those 16 seconds, you certainly know a lot of French grammar. In my post, I suggested working with around 10 recordings of 5 - 8 minutes each with transcripts. That's 50 to 80 minutes of French. That's a huge amount of French grammar and will probably include all the grammar the learner will ever hear in spoken French, especially of a specific genre.

What extensive listening will do is bring more vocabulary. This obviously is very important. And this is why a wide range of samples is important. To illustrate this, here is a transcription of 20 seconds of another sample DALF C1 test recording:

http://www.delfdalf.fr/_media/exemple-1-sujet-dalf-c1-audio-1-comprehension-orale.mp3

- France Inter. Il est 7 h 16. Bonjour Nathalie Fontrel.
- Bonjour.
- Vous êtes donc à la rédaction d’Inter spécialiste de questions environnementales et nous fêtons aujourd’hui les trente ans du Conservatoire du littoral. Depuis 1975, l’établissement a protégé, quoi, à peu près 10% du linéaire côtier du béton ?
- Oui, ça représente 800 kilomètres de rivage.

[Sarafina]

The forum is the best. Thank you for the advice.

1) How many hours per day would you recommend that I dedicate to just improving my listening? Although I want to improve as fast as possible. I am struggling to dedicate more than 2 hours just for listening activities. I wonder if that's enough for me to go from B1 listening to C1 by May-August 2018.

2) Any advice on how not to not feel too discouraged when listening to podcasts/tv series that are aimed/for French native speakers and only being able to understand 50-70%.
I know that I'm improving week after week but sometimes I feel frustrated when I can't understand 99% of what I'm listening to. The other day I was watching Daredevil in French: at times I would understand exactly what the character is saying and other times I might as well be listening to Chinese because I barely understood anything. Without French subtitles I feel like I am stumbling in the dark without a torchlight yet still managing to get across but with considerable difficulty. I should feel proud that I can still follow along.

3) Whether I should prioritise extensive listening over intensive listening

4) Whether I need to make my listening activities more active and if just concentrating and giving it my full attention while listening is enough.

My listening timetable has changed slightly
I'm still listening to 7jours (for intensive listening and multiple repetitions) and an episode that is part of a Franceculture podcast.

A site that I initially used to access some really interesting series dubbed in French is not working.
Now I've switched to watching more TV series from Netflix: Daredevil, Teen wolf (with no subtitles) and Marseilles and Chef's Table (with French subtitles). As well as Steven Universe, ATLA, LOK in French as well (on separate sites)
-Transcribing a video from Le Monde youtube channel
-To listen to various French youtubers when I am on public transport
-I've been trying to watch more podcasts aimed for native speakers (NoFun is a podcast about music, Season1 reviews and discuss TV series, Balados which I've mentioned before).
-I've stopped using Journal en français facile as I am trying to limit the amount of materials I am using that is aimed for learners.
-(In addition I've been trying to record myself for 2-5 minutes summarising and giving my opinion of an episode of any tv series that I've watched)

(I don't listen to audio-book as often as I could)

It's harder than I thought trying to find time to fit in all the podcasts, tv series and YouTube videos on a school day. I've noticed that my listening has improved considerably.

[smallwhite]

-I've stopped using Journal en français facile to trying to limit the amount of materials I am using that is aimed for learners.

How much of it do you understand on first listen?

[Sarafina]

-I've stopped using Journal en français facile to trying to limit the amount of materials I am using that is aimed for learners.

How much of it do you understand on first listen?

Around 70% if I watch it just once. It is really helpful and maybe I should only stop using it when I can understand 90% and above.

[sillygoose1]

OP, since you're studying French have you tried www.litteratureaudio.com ?

This is a great way to practice listening comprehension for a few reasons, in my opinion. First, the people reading are all different. You have bad quality microphones, mumblers, younger people and older people, people who talk fast, and so forth. It gets you used to tons of accents and ways of speaking. Second, there are lots of materials over 20 hours. If you could go through maybe five works just listening and having fun with the material then I'm sure you'll see incredible results after.

What I've noticed that started helping me is that after awhile I came to believe that what you know needs to be ingrained in your mind like second nature. In doing this, you won't get distracted by missing a word and your mind wont linger trying to decode it then missing the whole next sentence. You can have the reading knowledge of a college professor, but if you can't decode it orally on the fly then you're stuck in the same situation as others.

Don't try for perfection, either. I did and it made me miserable. But then I came up with an idea one day. I measured words I missed in English and words I missed in French when watching a TV show. It turns out that although I do miss more in French than English, English wasn't as little as I thought. We just take it for granted because it's our native language. Comprehension is more than just hearing a word and putting meaning to it. You need to also fill in gaps for words that don't come clearly to your head.

[Cavesa]

The forum is the best. Thank you for the advice.

1) How many hours per day would you recommend that I dedicate to just improving my listening? Although I want to improve as fast as possible. I am struggling to dedicate more than 2 hours just for listening activities. I wonder if that's enough for me to go from B1 listening to C1 by May-August 2018.

A rather tricky question. I would say you don't need to put in time every day. I am strongly convinced than the "a bit every day" rule doesn't work optimally here. And I am not sure whether "a lot every day" is sustainable. And I think you would do nothing wrong by focusing a lot on other stuff on the B1 level to get really strong base, and adding tons and tons of listening a bit later. Focusing on extensive listening and forgetting to get through the B1-C1 grammar properly (or other "boring" stuff) would be a huge mistake

An idea of what might a good listening plan look like (just an illustration): An one or two hours per week on B1, with the B1 resources you listed, if you put several hours in the other stuff. And that i As you are moving to B2 (I suppose that should happen around May, following your plan?), include tv series. 3 or 4 hours twice or three times a week (that is 4 or 5 standard american episodes in a row, some French series are like that too) are a very good start. When you feel more comfortable, you can choose to either continue this rhytm and focus on other stuff than extensive listening on the other days of the week. Or you can switch to an episode or two a day and not look so much like a tv addict anymore If you cannot do more than two hours in a day (even if you move other learning activites to the other days), it should work too, if you do it more often, but perhaps slower.

May-August, that is 17 weeks. 17 weeks x 8 hours, that is 136 hours from strong B1 or weak B2. That could work fine, even though I'd say striving for 17 x 10 hours would be much more reliable.

2) Any advice on how not to not feel too discouraged when listening to podcasts/tv series that are aimed/for French native speakers and only being able to understand 50-70%.
I know that I'm improving week after week but sometimes I feel frustrated when I can't understand 99% of what I'm listening to. The other day I was watching Daredevil in French: at times I would understand exactly what the character is saying and other times I might as well be listening to Chinese because I barely understood anything. Without French subtitles I feel like I am stumbling in the dark without a torchlight yet still managing to get across but with considerable difficulty. I should feel proud that I can still follow along.

Are you sure you weren't listening to Chinese? Some of the Daredevil characters speak it.
Don't be too discouraged. You are somewhere around B1 or B2 now, right? Then you are doing just fine, you are not supposed to understand 99% of everything you hear. You are progressing. If you want to see that progress, put on something that was a challenge a month ago and enjoy how easy it is now

3) Whether I should prioritise extensive listening over intensive listening

It is a personal choice. I did and didn't regret even once.

4) Whether I need to make my listening activities more active and if just concentrating and giving it my full attention while listening is enough.

With extensive listening, paying attention is enough and the "more active" activities are counterproductive as writing or stopping or filling boxes or gaps destroys the immersion. But when it comes to intensive listening, it is just the opposite.

My listening timetable has changed slightly
I'm still listening to 7jours (for intensive listening and multiple repetitions) and an episode that is part of a Franceculture podcast.

A site that I initially used to access some really interesting series dubbed in French is not working.
Now I've switched to watching more TV series from Netflix: Daredevil, Teen wolf (with no subtitles) and Marseilles and Chef's Table (with French subtitles). As well as Steven Universe, ATLA, LOK in French as well (on separate sites)
-Transcribing a video from Le Monde youtube channel
-To listen to various French youtubers when I am on public transport
-I've been trying to watch more podcasts aimed for native speakers (NoFun is a podcast about music, Season1 reviews and discuss TV series, Balados which I've mentioned before).
-I've stopped using Journal en français facile as I am trying to limit the amount of materials I am using that is aimed for learners.
-(In addition I've been trying to record myself for 2-5 minutes summarising and giving my opinion of an episode of any tv series that I've watched)

(I don't listen to audio-book as often as I could)

It's harder than I thought trying to find time to fit in all the podcasts, tv series and YouTube videos on a school day.

I like your plan, I think you have found something that works for you. A warning: Don't spread yourself too thin. It is not uncommon, but it is more obvious with coursebooks (the temptation to buy all five coursebooks in the bookstore and dive in all of them until we burn out at unit 3 in each). It can happen with the "fun stuff" too. You have 6 series, 4 podcasts, and several youtubers on top of that. There is no point in burning out, listen to your mood and taste too, don't be afraid to put something aside for a time and return later (or not). This can happen with books too, btw. I used to be able to read 5 o 7 books at once. They had a bookmark each for several months, I was choosing depending on the current mood, I had no trouble remembering all the plots, and it was the way to enjoy reading. I cannot do that anymore, probably due to my studies and having less free time for reading. I am now limiting myself to one or two fiction books at once across the languages. Make a plan that is sustainable. Focusing on too few resources can lead to burn out out of boredom. Too many to burn out due to being spread too thin. I wish you to find a good balance between the two.

I've noticed that my listening has improved considerably.

YES! That is the point! Congratulations and keep going!