Looking to know how pass DELE exam on your first try? These 8 essential tips for DELE preparation will help you master the exam and improve your Spanish language skills a lot. These practical strategies will get you ready for any DELE level preparation!
Tip number 1:
Appear for the level for which you are prepared ✅. It seems very obvious, but many students fail the DELE exam because they give the wrong level of DELE, either because someone has advised them incorrectly about their level, or because they have not understood what is included in each level. The DELE has 6 levels (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2), and it is important to know what is required at each one. Here you have an essential document with the contents of each level: Plan Curricular del Instituto Cervantes.
Tip number 2:
Practice all skills 🎧🗣🖍📖. The DELE exam is not a Spanish grammar exam. It is an exam that includes all language skills: oral comprehension and interaction, and written comprehension and interaction. Therefore, it is not enough that you know the grammatical contents (although you need to know them), but you have to know also how to communicate using those grammatical knowledge; that is, you have to know how to interact with a Spanish-speaking person both orally and in writing: speaking, writing, and understanding oral or written input.
Tip number 3:
Practice Spanish in real situations 🙋🏻♀️. It is important to “imitate” what can be real situations, real conversations, and use real materials; for example: knowing how to negotiate the price of an item, how to reach an agreement with someone, how to make a decision as a team, how to order food in a restaurant, how to go shopping at a store, or manage in a hotel or airport, etc.
Tip number 4:
Write a lot ✍🏽. In each level, different writing tasks are required, and it is important to practice them well 😎. You have to use the appropriate connectors so that your texts have a logical structure. Here is in short, what is required in each level in this regard:
DELE A1:
- Fill out a form;
- Write a text like a postcard, email, letter, or message.
DELE A2:
- Write a text like a postcard, email, letter, or message in response to a given text;
- Choose an option between writing a text about a daily topic of personal life; write a text from some photos or data.
DELE B1:
- Write a letter, message, email, or blog;
- Write a composition, diary entry, or biography, presenting information and personal opinion.
DELE B2:
- Write a letter or email in relation to an audio.
- Choose an option between writing an article commenting on a graph or writing an article on a blog or a review.
DELE C1:
- Write an article summarizing an audio, and giving a personal opinion;
- Choose an option between writing a formal letter (of complaint, request for something or recommendation…), and writing a report, review or article based on some data.
DELE C2:
- Write a text based on the information collected from different oral and written sources;
- Correct a text and rewrite it properly (punctuation, lexicon, etc.);
- Write a report, article, letter to the editor, blog entry, etc. that accompanies the given images or texts.
Tip number 5:
Read in Spanish about the topics of your exam on the internet 📖🤓. It’s a good technique to practice the topics of each level. Make sure that those Internet sources are good sources without errors. For example, if you know that the topic of work and jobs is a common topic in B2, read a lot about work, interviews, teleworking, etc. on the internet. This way, you become familiar with the vocabulary and the appropriate structures.
Tip number 6:
Familiarise yourself with the format of the exam 📝. You can practice with DELE manuals that contain exams to practice, of which there are many (for example: Dale al DELE, Cronómetro, Prepara y Practica el DELE, Nuevo DELE, etc.). You can also take DELE preparatory courses, if you can. At Hispanic Horizons, we offer DELE preparatory courses via Zoom 👩🏽💻.
Tip number 7:
Time yourself when doing the mock exams ⏰. One of the problems in the DELE exam is the lack of time: there is a time limit for the test, and no extra time is given 🆘. It’s important to practice the exam as if it were a real situation, setting the clock to do each test within the established time.
Tip number 8:
Get used to the accent of different Spanish-speaking countries 🇲🇽🇦🇷🇺🇾🇨🇴🇻🇪🇸🇻🇳🇮🇪🇨🇨🇱🇨🇷🇵🇷🇬🇹🇭🇳🇩🇲🇵🇪🇺🇾🇬🇶🇵🇦🇧🇴🇨🇺🇪🇸. The DELE exam is not an exam of Spanish from Spain, but it covers all varieties of Spanish. That’s why it’s important to listen to different Spanish-speaking accents and get used to them, on YouTube or by any other means.
We hope that these 8 tips for passing the DELE exam are helpful to you. If you have any other ideas, don’t hesitate to share them in the comments.
If you’re a student and you’d like to learn Spanish face-to-face or online, and obtain an internationally recognized certificate, you can enroll in one of our Spanish courses online or offline at Hispanic Horizons. We also offer DELE preparatory courses and 99% of our students have passed the DELE Exams with our help. You can also read our Spanish blog to practice 🤓 ¡Hasta la vista✌🏽!
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