The DELE C1 oral exam lasts 20 minutes and has three tasks: summarising and evaluating a written article, an interview about that same topic, and a negotiation in which you and the examiner must agree on one of four options. You get 20 minutes to prepare the first two. It is marked on fluency, accuracy, range and task completion.
One thing before anything else: this exam changed in 2024, and a great deal of what you will find online still describes the previous version. If a guide does not mention mediation, it is out of date.
📋 Table of Contents
- What changed in 2024
- What mediation actually means
- The format: three tasks in twenty minutes
- The twenty minutes of preparation
- Two examiners in the room
- How the C1 oral is marked
- What we see go wrong
- How to prepare for the DELE C1 oral
- Preparing with an official exam centre
- Frequently asked questions
- Prepare with people who mark the exam
What changed in 2024
The Instituto Cervantes updated the C1 and C2 exams in 2024, following the Council of Europe’s Companion Volume to the CEFR, which added scales for mediating texts.
The changes that affect the oral:
- The paper has a new name. It is no longer Expresión e interacción orales. It is now Expresión, mediación e interacción orales — EMIO. Mediation is in the title because it is now assessed explicitly.
- Task 1 is defined more tightly. It requires you to summarise a text, evaluate it and give a reasoned opinion. Not simply to talk about a topic.
- Task 2 is defined as an interview.
- Task 3 emphasises shared responsibility between candidate and examiner for reaching an agreement.
- The marking scales changed, both the categories and what each one weighs.
The structure of the three tasks did not change. What changed is what they are testing and how it is scored — which is enough to make an old guide misleading.
What mediation actually means
This is the concept that separates C1 from B2, and it is poorly explained almost everywhere.
Mediation is not translation, and it is not summary in the school sense. It is taking a text that someone else cannot access — because of its length, its complexity, its register — and conveying what matters in it to another person, in a form they can use.
In Task 1 you are given a newspaper article of 750 to 850 words. You have 20 minutes with it. Then you have between three and five minutes to convey it to the examiner, evaluate it and give your own argued opinion.
A candidate who retells the article paragraph by paragraph has not mediated it. A candidate who identifies what matters, organises it for a listener who has not read it, and then separates the article’s position from their own, has.
The markers are given a sheet listing the main ideas of the input text, specifically so they can judge the mediation.
The format: three tasks in twenty minutes
Task 1 — Presentation on a topic (3 to 5 minutes)
You choose one of two topics, each with a newspaper article attached — an educational or professional subject. During the preparation time you read it, take notes and build an outline.
Then you deliver a short monologue: summarise the article, evaluate it, and argue your own view.
Task 2 — Interview on the topic (4 to 6 minutes)
The examiner asks you questions about the same topic. They are complex questions, and you are expected to argue a position and support it with examples.
This is the longest task and it is still within what you prepared, but the questions are not.
Task 3 — Informal conversation: negotiation (4 to 6 minutes)
You are given a card describing a situation and four options — photographs, posters, adverts, slogans, short texts. You and the examiner have to discuss them and reach an agreement on one.
You do not prepare this task. And its demand is different from everything before it: you are not presenting or answering, you are negotiating. Agreeing, disagreeing, conceding, proposing alternatives, bringing the other person round.
The twenty minutes of preparation
Twenty minutes, covering Tasks 1 and 2 only. You read the instructions and the input article, take notes and write an outline you may consult during the exam.
Twenty minutes is not generous for an 850-word article you must then summarise, evaluate and defend. Most of that time goes on reading and deciding what matters — which is a skill you should practise under the clock, not discover on the day.
Two examiners in the room
One interviews you, manages the conversation and awards the holistic mark. The other marks against the analytic scale and does not take part at all.
The exam also opens with a few informal warm-up questions that are not assessed.
How the C1 oral is marked
- A holistic mark across all three tasks — 40% of the oral score.
- An analytic mark — 60% — with the three tasks weighted equally at 20% each.
The analytic scale has four categories:
| Category | What it measures |
|---|---|
| Fluency | Pace, spontaneity, whether you sustain extended speech without visible effort |
| Accuracy | Grammatical and lexical control at an advanced level |
| Range | The breadth of structures and vocabulary you actually deploy |
| Task completion | Different for each task: mediation in Task 1, interview in Task 2, interaction in Task 3 |
That fourth category is the one that changed, and it matters. It means Task 3 is not marked on how well you speak but on whether you actually negotiated — whether you engaged with the examiner’s proposals and worked towards an agreement.
Each category is scored from 0 to 3. The full descriptors are in the official DELE C1 exam guide, 2024 edition. Make sure any guide you read is the 2024 one.
What we see go wrong
Retelling instead of mediating. The most common pattern in Task 1: a paragraph-by-paragraph account of the article, delivered competently, with no selection and no structure of the candidate’s own. The Spanish may be excellent and the mediation mark still low.
Not separating the article’s view from your own. Task 1 asks for both: what the text argues, and what you think of it. Candidates who blur the two lose the evaluation half of the task.
Treating Task 3 as a presentation. Stating a preference among the four options, justifying it, and stopping. That is not a negotiation. The task requires engaging with what the examiner says and moving towards an agreement, and it is marked on exactly that.
Preparing only the monologue. Task 1 is the one you can control, so it absorbs the preparation. It is worth 20% of the analytic mark, the same as the other two.
Advanced Spanish, intermediate discourse. At C1 the vocabulary is usually there. What is often missing is the organisation — signposting, concession, hedging, the markers that let a listener follow a long argument.
How to prepare for the DELE C1 oral
Use the 2024 guide, not an older one. If a practice book or a blog does not mention mediation, it is describing the previous exam.
Practise mediation specifically. Take a long article, read it for twenty minutes, then explain it to someone who has not read it — in four minutes, with your own evaluation at the end. That is the task.
Practise negotiating, not presenting. Have someone take the other side and refuse to agree straight away. Task 3 is the one most candidates have never rehearsed.
Work on discourse markers, not more vocabulary. At this level, organisation is usually what separates band 2 from band 3.
Read the scales before you prepare anything else. Knowing that task completion is a separate category, and that it means something different in each task, changes what you practise.
If you are weighing up whether C1 is your level, our guide to the Spanish language levels sets out what each one means, and the B2 oral has a different and lighter structure. For the exam as a whole, see how to prepare for the DELE exam.
Preparing with an official exam centre
Hispanic Horizons is an official DELE exam centre in Mumbai, and our DELE preparation courses are taught by certified DELE examiners.
At C1 that matters more than at any other level, for a practical reason: the exam changed recently, the scales changed with it, and mediation is not something you can self-assess. Someone who applies the current scales can tell you which band your performance sits in and what would move it up.
Courses run online as well as in person. Dates and registration are on our DELE exams page.
Frequently asked questions
How long is the DELE C1 oral exam?
Twenty minutes across three tasks, plus 20 minutes of preparation for the first two.
What is mediation in the DELE C1 oral?
Conveying the content of a complex written text to someone who has not read it, in a form they can use — selecting what matters, organising it for a listener, and distinguishing the text’s position from your own. It was added explicitly to the C1 exam in 2024.
Did the DELE C1 change in 2024?
Yes. The oral paper was renamed Expresión, mediación e interacción orales, mediation became an assessed category, the tasks were defined more tightly and the marking scales changed. Guides written before 2024 describe a different exam.
Which parts of the DELE C1 oral can I prepare?
Tasks 1 and 2 only. Task 3, the negotiation, is unseen, and it carries the same 20% of the analytic mark as the other two.
What is the hardest task in the DELE C1 oral?
Task 3 catches most candidates out, because it is unprepared and because it asks for something they have rarely practised: reaching an agreement rather than presenting a view.
Is the C1 oral much harder than the B2?
They are different rather than simply harder. The B2 oral tests whether you can argue and describe. The C1 tests whether you can take a complex text and make it usable for someone else, and whether you can negotiate — skills that have little to do with the amount of Spanish you know.
Prepare with people who mark the exam
The C1 oral rewards knowing exactly what each task is assessing — and since 2024 that is not what most of the material online describes.
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