The DELF B1 oral: three parts, ten minutes of preparation
The DELF B1 oral is three parts in a row, in front of two examiners, in about a quarter of an hour. One of them talks with you and the other takes notes. First comes a guided interview about you, then a role play, then a point of view argued from a short press text. You get ten minutes of preparation before you go in, and they serve the third part only. Each part has its own mark, and your French is marked once, across all three.
Updated 1 October 2026
Ten minutes of preparation, then about fifteen with the examiners
| Part | Time | Trigger document | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preparation, for part 3 only | 10 min | ||
| Guided interview | 2 to 3 min | None | 4 |
| Interaction exercise, a role play | 3 to 4 min | None | 4 |
| Monologue, a viewpoint defended | 5 to 7 min | One document, drawn at the start | 4 |
| Language, across the 3 parts | 13 | ||
| Total | 15 min | 25 |
Source · the official DELF B1 tout public format.
Three parts, three different skills
Part 1 is the entretien dirigé, a guided interview. The examiner asks about you: where you live, what you do, something you have done, something you plan. The skill is description: setting out your own life as a string of connected points, then adding detail when a follow-up question comes. A one-word answer leaves the examiner nothing to mark.
Part 2 is the exercice en interaction, a role play. You draw two subjects, keep one and play it with no preparation time. Each subject is an everyday situation in which something has gone wrong. In our practice set: a hotel room smaller than the one you booked, a cancelled train. The examiner plays the other person. You are marked on getting something done: asking, checking, explaining the problem, agreeing on a way out. The register has to fit the person in front of you.
Part 3 is the expression d’un point de vue, listed in the table above as a monologue. Before the oral you drew two short press texts, kept one and prepared it. You say in simple terms what the text is about, then defend your own opinion for about three minutes, with reasons and examples. Then the examiner may ask a few questions. The text is only your starting point: your opinion gets marked, not your summary.
So two parts out of three are improvised and one is prepared. The first asks you to talk about yourself, the second to sort something out with someone, the third to argue. A candidate who has rehearsed only the monologue has rehearsed a third of the task marks.
Twelve points for the tasks, thirteen for the language
The grid has six lines. Three of them mark the tasks, one line per part, and each is worth four points. The interview is the shortest part and the point of view the longest, yet both weigh the same. An interview treated as a warm-up costs what a failed monologue would cost.
The other three lines mark your French: lexique, morphosyntaxe and maîtrise du système phonologique, that is pronunciation, intonation and stress. Together they hold thirteen of the 25 points, settled once, on the oral as a whole. For vocabulary, the grid rewards a wide range of everyday words and the paraphrase that gets you round a missing one. For grammar, it asks whether you handle the most frequent structures accurately enough. For pronunciation, whether you are generally intelligible, even with some awkward intonation.
Our grader does not count mistakes. A wrong gender, a missed agreement or one badly chosen word takes no point away while you are understood. Neither a mastered subjunctive nor a very formal register is expected at B1. Points go when an error blocks understanding, or when control of the indicative tenses is lost.
| Criterion | Maximum |
|---|---|
| Réalisation de la tâche 1 : entretien dirigé (2 à 3 minutes)Task 1: guided interview | 4 |
| Réalisation de la tâche 2 : exercice en interaction (3 à 4 minutes)Task 2: interaction exercise | 4 |
| Réalisation de la tâche 3 : expression d’un point de vue (5 à 7 minutes)Task 3: expressing a point of view | 4 |
| Lexique (pour les trois parties de l’épreuve)Vocabulary | 5 |
| Morphosyntaxe (pour les trois parties de l’épreuve)Morphosyntax (grammar) | 4 |
| Maîtrise du système phonologique (pour les trois parties de l’épreuve)Phonological control | 4 |
| Total | 25 |
Source · the current harmonised DELF B1 marking grid.
A part 3 document and the outline to build from it
Excerpt
Les marchés locaux face aux grandes surfaces
Dans plusieurs villes de Côte d'Ivoire, les marchés de quartier attirent toujours autant de clients malgré l'ouverture de grandes surfaces modernes. À Bouaké, une vendeuse de légumes explique qu'elle connaît ses clientes depuis vingt ans et qu'elle leur accorde parfois un crédit en fin de mois. Les habitués apprécient le contact direct avec les vendeurs, la fraîcheur des produits et la possibilité de négocier les prix. D'autres préfèrent les supermarchés pour leur confort, leurs horaires étendus et la diversité des produits importés.
Trigger document written for this site, in the format of part 3.
Start with what the text is about, in one sentence of your own. Here: two ways of buying food, the neighbourhood market and the supermarket, and what draws people to each. That is the theme, and the grid wants it in simple terms. Do not go back through the text line by line. It takes no side, so taking one is your job. The setting is invented for the exercise.
Then set the rest of the outline down in keywords, one line each. Your opinion, said plainly: the market, the supermarket, or each for different purchases. A first reason with an example from your own life: the stall where the seller knows what you buy. A second reason with another kind of example: the shop still open when you leave work. A last sentence that restates your opinion in other words. Afterwards the examiner may ask you to clarify or back up what you said, so keep one more example in reserve.
Spending the ten preparation minutes
Official timing
- Preparation, for part 3 only10 min
- Guided interview4 points
- Interaction exercise, a role play4 points
- Monologue, a viewpoint defended4 points
- Language, across the 3 parts13 points
Source · the official DELF B1 tout public format.
A workable split
- Reading the document3 min
- Planning the answer5 min
- Rehearsing out loud2 min
A workable split. This is our arithmetic, not an official figure.
Rehearsing the three parts out loud
Each part is a different act of speech: describing your life, negotiating, defending an opinion. Each has to have been said aloud before exam day, and two of the three cannot be prepared in the room.
Rehearse in exam order, with a clock running, and record yourself. A timed B1 speaking exercise gives you a subject and a time limit. A full B1 mock sets the oral beside your three other papers. That comparison matters: under 5/25 in a single paper fails the whole exam.
- 1Write down ten questions an examiner could ask about your life, your past and your plans. Answer each one aloud, in a few full sentences, without notes.
- 2Take an everyday problem (a wrong order, a late delivery) and play the scene with someone, or take both roles. Greet, explain, propose, agree, take your leave.
- 3Pick a short article and give yourself ten minutes with a pencil. Note the theme, your opinion, two reasons and an example for each, in keywords only.
- 4Speak from those notes for about three minutes and record it. Then answer aloud two questions someone who disagrees would ask.
- 5Play the recording back with the grid in front of you and mark yourself on each of the six lines. The line you hesitate over is next week’s work.
The free lesson: where all 25 points come from
Free lesson · study guide
The speaking test game plan
Fifteen minutes with an examiner, three parts, and ten minutes of prep that serve only the last one. Here is where all 25 points come from.
Before the oral: the questions that come up
How long is the DELF B1 oral?+
About a quarter of an hour in front of the two examiners, after ten minutes of preparation. The parts run back to back: two to three minutes of interview, three to four of role play, five to seven for the point of view. Listening, reading and writing are a separate, collective session: see the whole B1 exam.
Can you choose your subject in the B1 oral?+
Partly. For the role play and for the point of view, you draw two subjects and hand one back. In the guided interview nothing is drawn: the questions are about you. For part 3, keep the text that brings two examples to mind at once, and choose quickly.
Which part are the ten minutes of preparation for?+
The third only, the expression d’un point de vue. You take them before the oral begins, with the text you kept. The interview and the role play are not prepared: for the role play you draw two subjects, keep one and start straight away. B2 differs: half an hour of preparation, which covers both parts. See B2 speaking.
How many marks are for language, and how many for the tasks?+
Thirteen of the 25 points are for language: five for lexique (vocabulary), four for morphosyntaxe (grammar) and four for maîtrise du système phonologique (pronunciation). They are decided once, over the three parts together. The other twelve are split evenly between the interview, the role play and the point of view.
Is an AI score for speaking worth an examiner’s?+
No. Our grader applies the six lines of the official grid, but we have no set of examiner-marked recordings to check it against yet. It also works from a transcript of your recording, so the pronunciation line is an indirect estimate. Of the numbers on this site, this is the one to trust least. Use it to find the line that is costing you marks. A DELF diploma comes only from sitting the exam at an approved centre.
Keep reading
The other B1 pages
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