What is the Diplôme de langue française approfondi
To take the DALF exam, you have to pass DELF exam or pass a placement test. DALF certificate frees from obligation of taking the French language exams when applying for admission to universities in France.
DALF exam has two levels: C1 and C2. Both of them are taken after selection one of two themes: arts and humanities (lettres et sciences humaines) or science (sciences). The exam uses material from the press, radio, the internet or literarature.
DALF C1
• Listening comprehension (40 minutes) - about 8 minutes long recording is played twice after which you need to answer the questions about what you have heard. Then, few short recordings are played once, and questions regarding them must be answered.
• Reading comprehension (50 minutes) - answers to a given text. Text taken from the literature or journalism, the text length is about 1.500 to 2,000 words.
• Written statement (2h 30 min) - you must write two texts: a synthesis in 220 words that will be a summary of a few received documents and write argumentative essays related to themes in the given documents on which a synthesis was written (maximum 250 words).
• Oral statement (30 min, the preparation of 1h) - presentation and a discussion on a given topic based on the received articles.
DALF C2
• Listening comprehension and oral statement (30 minutes, the preparation of 1h) – after listening twice to a recording where you can take notes the candidate is preparing for discussion with the committee at which candidate presents that subject of heard recording and develops its ideas and issues.
• Understanding and written statement - candidate receives a number of texts, with a total of about 2 000 words. On the basis of received materials, you need to write your own text (eg, article).
DALF dates
Examinations are held once a year in June.
DALF tests
All tests, questions and sample recordings used during the exam in previous years are available on: www.ciep.fr.
Grades and DALF exam results
In each of the 4 parts of DALF C1 exam you can get 25 points. The exam is passed when the 50 points are obtained, additionally from every part you need to get at least 5 points.
In DALF C2 examination, the final result and the decision whether the candidate passed an exam is decided by the jury.