In the Production orale section of both the DELF B1 and B2 exam you will be expected to speak about yourself as well as defeat your opinion on a range of topics. A good way to not only improve your confidences, but also help you in improving your pronounciation, is to imitate the french accent and to also learn how to use different french words in content.

A great way that I have found to do this, is by listening or watching a short clip, not more than 10 minutes on a various subject matters, and reading out loud the transcript along with the recording. A short clip since it will be similar to the amount of time allocated for your oral presentation. This is helpful as it help  in forming  a habit of associating key words in french. That is to say, words that almost always go together. In english we refer to these words as collocations.

The use of collocations allows a non native speaker to sound more natural and authentic. An example of a collocation in english would be ” a fast car”. If a non native english was to say ” a quick car”, we would understand, and it is not quite wrong but it is just not the natural way of saying it in english. The same applies in french. In addition, you will get the chance to practice out loud, theme specific vocabulary, that you might not get the opportunity to practice in your day-to-day life as well as getting in the habit of doing a monologue in french, without losing your train of thought.

Reading out loud along with an audio clip also allows you to learn the various intonation of the french language. With a clip you can stop and rewind and practice as long as you feel is necessary.

Recommended Resources

Recommended podcast includes ” Yabla French”. You can find this in the itunes store. Here you will find short videos of about 5 minutes with both french and english caption. This podcast is also very interesting because it also teaches you about french culture which is an added bonus.

A great website is  La Guinguette at http://www.laguinguette.com. It is basically a french audio magazine. it provides short audio clips of roughly 7-10 minutes, looking at different topics from politics to environment. This is great as it is the type of subjects that you will come across in your french exam. It is completed with a transcript in french and it’s english translation, side by side. The listening is not too difficult and it is really helpful in getting you ready for your production oral of your french exam.