Ça y est, j'ai réussi!

I got my test results back, and I am now officially in possession of my diplôme approfondi de langue française. Well, I don't actually have the paper yet, but I passed the exam. I was actually quite upset on Tuesday after my oral exam. I was pretty sure that I had failed the exam. Going into the exam, I was the least worried about the oral portion, since most of my oral communication in the past seven months has been in French. I was actually more nervous about the written part, since it's been 2 1/2 years since I've actually written a paper in French. People that learn a language orally often have horrific spelling, since they speak so much more than they read and write. Although I didn't learn French orally, I've come to fluency (the beginnings of it, at least) mostly by listening to and speaking it all the time. So I wondered how well I would do on the written portion of the exam as opposed to the oral part. After I took the written part (last week), I felt okay about it (not like I had gotten the full number of points on everything, but okay). And I figured that, if need be, I could redeem myself in the oral exam. That was until the night before the exam, when I received the misinformation that I would have to make a 15-minute speech the next day. I don't even know if I could make a 15-minute speech in English, at least not without more than an hour to prepare (and, yes, I am fully aware that, as a law student, that's a skill that I'll need to hone. I feel more comfortable in written media.). So anyway, the night before the oral exam, I started to get nervous that I'd panic in the middle of it and not know what else to say. And wouldn't ya know? That's exactly what happened. I had to choose between two topics: the homeless and genetically-modified organisms. I obviously chose the former. I figured that it'd be fairly easy to talk about the homeless. I had one hour to read three articles and then prepare a presentation (including my own ideas and opinions) with the standard intro/main points/conclusion. I took 20 minutes to read the articles and then started writing. But I ended up making rabbit trails. The issue of homelessness was actually more complicated than I thought! Before I knew it, I had only 10 minutes left, and, although I had a lot written down, I didn't have it organized at all. The judge came to get me, and I was obligated to walk in there unprepared to make a 15-minute speech. After about 3 minutes, I had nothing left to say, so I had a discussion with the judge. Language-wise, it was fine, but afterward, I got pretty upset, thinking that I had blown it. I actually found out later that no one talked for 15 minutes straight. It was more like the speech plus the discussion equaled about 15 minutes, like mine. In hindsight, I shouldn't have gotten so hung up on the supposed time requirement, and I should not have made it so complicated. But oh well. It turns out that I did fine. The real problem was not with my French; it was my inability to quickly organize what I wanted to say. Getting lost in the detail again. Perfect illustration of why I need the big first-year picture before law school starts. Actually, after the exam, I started to think, If I could mess up an exam like this that should be right at my level, I'll probably do the same thing in law school. That's not exactly logical, but that's where my thoughts were going that day. Law school is competitive. Grades (especially first-year grades) are extremely important in relation to summer and after-graduation employment. And most course grades are based exclusively on one final exam taken at the end of the semester. I was letting that freak me out. As it turns out, I passed the exam anyway. But I was reminded that I don't like to go into exams unprepared.

Here's a blurb from the Centre international d'études pédagogique about the diploma that I received:

Language users at level C1 are independent. They can express themselves fluently and spontaneously. They have a large vocabulary and can choose the appropriate expression to introduce their comments. They can produce clear, well-structured discourse without hesitation and which shows controlled use of structures.