I know there are previous DELE C1 exam threads here and elsewhere (this blog post on Dele C2 exam was particularly helpful for me), which was the inspiration for me to share my own experiences.
However, when I sat the C1 exam this month, there was still a lot of surprises for me in terms of content/structure of the exam.
Since /r/languagelearning has been so helpful for me, I wanted to share my experiences with anybody else planning to sit a DELE exam, although I suspect it would be useful for the other CEFR exams, too (SIELE, DELF etc).
Background: I've been speaking Spanish for 7.5 years, I live in a Spanish speaking country & use the language for complex life stuff (eg, negotiating a secondhand car, hiring contractors, endless tramites). However, I learned my Spanish in the real world, not the classroom, therefore it remains imperfect and a work in progress.
I've don't several DELE courses (B1, B2, C1 and C2) for the rigor and structure, not the qualifications. This was my first DELE exam and my first exam of any kind since school/college.
Here are the things I wish I'd known beforehand.
#1. Peninsular Spanish is (still) king. A few years ago, the Instituto Cervantes said that DELE would feature more Latin American Spanish. My exam still had a heavy peninsula Spanish bias, with the majority of the five tasks in listening/reading from Spain. Obviously this does not reflect the real world, where 90%+ of hispanohablantes speak some form of Latin American Spanish.
Takeaway: Binge on content from Spain, not just than Latin America. I listed to 100s of hours of podcasts from Colombia, Argentina and Venezuela, when I should have been focusing on Spain, because the vocab and accent is so different. Personally, I think it would perhaps be easier to be strong on peninsula spanish and merely "OK" at Latin American Spanish, than the other way around.
#2. Spanish is necesary, but not sufficient, to pass DELE C1. It's not a Spanish exam, per se, but a test of other skills - like time keeping, improvised speaking, exam technique, note taking, handwriting - that happens to be in Spanish. I'd find parts of it tough in English.
Takeaway: I should have spent way more time working under time pressure and using handwriting. I couldn't read my own notes, so I should have longhand writing beforehand.
#3. "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth". I thought my DELE courses/classes and a couple of DELE prep books meant I was prepared, but the reality of the experience - relentless time pressure, exam stress, the unusual context - was a shock for me. I was trembling with nerves, and - for example - I didn't have time to read the texts I'd written.
Takeaway: I should have thought more about recreating the exact context of the exam: timed tasks, writing longhand, and using previous papers, not just trusting textbooks.
#4. There are new(ish) tareas. The exam had two sections I'd not seen in either my DELE courses or textbooks, although I am told they have been in the exam for a few years. The first one was a straightforward friendly negociation, and the second one was a listening task involving idioms, which of course are heavily regional and left my completely baffled.
Takeaway: Don't assume the text books, courses and exam guides are up to date.
#5. Vocabulary was a surpise struggle for me. Some tasks had a large volume of words I simply didn't understand, and struggled to guess in context. This really caught me by surprise, as I have no problems whatsoever day-to-day (eg, TV or literature in Spanish from various countries).
Again, this was a result of the Peninsula Spanish bias. A quick poll of native speaker friends showed they had the smae problem with some of the real life examples from the exam.
Takeaway: I can't stress this enough: don't neglect comprehensible input from Spain!
#6. Choose your test center carefully. I was the only C1 candidate, and one of three DELE candidates. This meant the test center scheduled the whole exam on one day, not two days like most centers, to save time. This is a big deal when the exam is so long: it started at 9am and ended at 3pm, with approx 90 mins of breaks.
The test center was spectacularly noisy (city centre location) and with windows open (COVID protocol). I had drummers busking outside for 20 minutes, people shouting in English into phones for 10 minutes, that kind of thing. There was constant distractions, and the environment was unlike any exam I've ever sat before. It was more like sitting an exam in a student shared apartment.
Takeaway: Enroll in the exam at a larger test center, where you are not the only student and where they will be more organized. This may involve travel.
#7. Sit the DELE exam one level down. Real life C1 texts/audios were more difficult than the C1 courses/book tasks. The hardest C1 tasks were tougher than any C2 tasks I'd tackled, because questions were presented in far more dense/complex language. This difference applied to both the DELE courses I did and the DELE textbooks.
Takeaway: I wish I'd first sat the exam one level down first to get used to the exam format. Make sure you use of the mock exams that Insituto Cervantes provide - not just textbooks or course materials prepared by others.
#8. Meet your examiners in advance, if possible. My examiners were both delightful - warm, encouraging, and trying to put me at ease. They wanted me to succeed, and I'm told this is not the case in every exam center! However, I wish I'd met them beforehand to break the ice a little and build a little rapport in advance.
Takeaway: I'd go join a group class for an excuse to know the examiners. I now know that some exam centers even do intensive last minute courses a week or two before the exam.
#9. Order DELE test prep books early. Personally, I found El Cronometro and the rest insufferable, but if you do plan to use them, the ebook versions are terrible versus the print books. Which is important, because the print versions are not widely available in every country.
The "El Cronometro" ebook requires a special ebook app (ie, no Kindle or PDF version). The "Preparación al Diploma de Español" Kindle edition is a pirated PDF that's been scanned with the answers from a previous student!
Takeaway: No DELE books are available where I live, so you have to import them from the US a month in advance. Plan ahead or you will be stuck with the spectacularly sub-standard ebooks.
#10. There are alternatives to El Cronometro. A week before the exam, I found this $25 DELE prep video course on exam technique. It's reasonably good, but takes four hours to explain what could probably be explained in 30 minutes, if you cut the filler. Nevertheless, I found it far more actionable and easy to digest than El Cronometro on the nitty gritty of the exam.
Both the course and El Cronometro have plenty of detail about the mechanics of the exam (eg, how many tareas, how long they are, how to plan your time).
Takeaway: If you hate El Cronometro, there are alternatives to prepare for the exam.
#11. During COVID19, you can cancel last minute. Buried on the last page of the the application form, is the information that you can postpone or cancel your enrollment a few weeks before the exam during the pandemic. Normally, you would lose your fee after enrollment closes.
Takeaway: My exam center didn't know this, so I had to explain it to them when I needed to postpone earlier in the year.
#12. Plan exam logistics carefully. I booked a hotel the night before, as you have to arrive at 8.45am and I live two hours away. I didn't want to arrive tired or stressed.
Takeaway: Your exam center won't tell you exactly when the exam is until a couple of weeks beforehand, so any travel etc may have to be quite last minute.
#13. Book classes with a DELE examiner. There's dozens on iTalki, if you search for "DELE examiner". I wish I'd done this at the start of my DELE study, not the end, but only just heard the suggestion on /r/languagelearning last month.
Takeaway: Almost every Spanish teacher claims to know DELE, but the only ones who really understand the quirks of the exam are the examiners. You need a DELE specialist.
That's it, good luck and I hope might be as helpful for somebody else as the advice from /r/languagelearning has been for me.
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