The DELF B2 oral: 30 minutes of prep, then the examiner
Production orale is the last paper of the B2, and the only one where another person is in the room with you. You draw a short document, prepare on your own, then defend a position while someone argues back. Two tasks are marked, and your French is marked across both of them.
Updated 2 September 2026
Half an hour alone, twenty minutes in the room
| Part | Time | Trigger document | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preparation, before both parts | 30 min | ||
| Monologue, a viewpoint defended | 5 to 7 min | One document, drawn at the start | 5 |
| Debate with the examiner | 10 to 13 min | None | 5 |
| Language, across both parts | 15 | ||
| Total | 20 min | 25 |
Source · the official DELF B2 tout public format.
Two parts that are marked separately
The two parts do not test the same competence, which is why each carries a criterion of its own. The monologue is spoken production. The CEFR asks a B2 speaker for clear, detailed accounts in their own field. It also asks them to argue a viewpoint on a current issue, weighing the options. The débat is spoken interaction. The same framework expects an exchange spontaneous enough to hold up with a native speaker. It expects an opinion stated, sustained and defended under challenge.
No topic calls for specialist knowledge. The task descriptors reward naming the problem the document raises. They reward a position backed by concrete arguments and relevant examples, and held when the examiner pushes on it.
Ten points for what you say, fifteen for how you say it
The current harmonised grid splits the marks in two. Each part carries a task criterion of its own, so the monologue and the débat are scored independently. The three language criteria, vocabulary, morphosyntax and control of the sound system, are assessed over both parts together. A candidate who speaks well in the first part and then goes quiet has not protected the language marks. How DELF speaking is graded takes the five criteria one at a time.
Those marks reward range and control rather than difficulty. Rephrasing round a word you cannot find scores; stalling on it does not. A structure you hold to the end beats a complex one you lose halfway. Intonation and stress carry meaning that grammar alone does not.
The grid is equally clear about what it does not punish. Surface slips (an agreement, a gender, one wrong word) cost nothing while the message gets through, and errors are never counted. A formal register is not expected at B2, and neither is near-native control. What comes off the total is the error that blocks understanding.
| Criterion | Maximum |
|---|---|
| Réalisation de la tâche 1 : monologue suivi, défense d’un point de vue argumenté (5 à 7 minutes)Task 1: monologue, defending an argued viewpoint | 5 |
| Réalisation de la tâche 2 : exercice en interaction, débat (10 à 13 minutes)Task 2: interaction, the debate | 5 |
| Lexique (pour les deux parties de l’épreuve)Vocabulary (including lexical spelling) | 5 |
| Morphosyntaxe (pour les deux parties de l’épreuve)Morphosyntax (grammar) | 5 |
| Maîtrise du système phonologique (pour les deux parties de l’épreuve)Phonological control | 5 |
| Total | 25 |
Every criterion is scored from 0 to 5, in steps of 1.
The official tick values are 0, 1, 3 and 5. The values 2 and 4 are our own interpolations, not official rungs.
Source · the current harmonised DELF B2 marking grid.
A trigger document and the plan it should produce
Excerpt
Intelligence artificielle et recrutement : une promesse risquée
Des entreprises ivoiriennes du secteur des services utilisent désormais des logiciels d'intelligence artificielle pour présélectionner les candidatures à l'embauche. Ces outils analysent les CV, les lettres de motivation et même certains profils en ligne afin de classer les postulants avant tout contact humain. Leurs partisans vantent un gain de temps et une réduction des biais liés aux préférences personnelles des recruteurs. Leurs adversaires, en revanche, dénoncent des algorithmes opaques qui reproduisent et amplifient les discriminations existantes, notamment envers les candidats diplômés d'universités africaines moins reconnues par les bases de données internationales.
This document was written for this site, in the format and register of a B2 trigger document. Official exam sujets are never published.
Read it for the disagreement it stages, not for its content. Two camps here: the time and the fairness these tools promise, and the discrimination they are accused of reproducing. The question between those two positions, put in a single sentence, is your problématique. The document will not hand it to you, and it holds no answer to it either. The answer is yours, and it is what you are marked on.
Announce the source and the theme in two sentences, then move on. Retelling the text eats half the monologue and earns nothing. What follows is two or three arguments, each carried by an example nobody else would have chosen. Keep the strongest for last, and grant the other side its best point somewhere in the middle: that is the point the examiner will reach for the moment you stop.
Close on the position itself, restated in one sentence, and keep one argument in reserve. The débat opens on the ground your conclusion chose.
What to do with the thirty preparation minutes
Official timing
- Preparation, before both parts30 min
- Monologue, a viewpoint defended5 points
- Debate with the examiner5 points
- Language, across both parts15 points
Source · the official DELF B2 tout public format.
A workable split
- Reading the document8 min
- Planning the answer15 min
- Rehearsing out loud7 min
A workable split. This is our arithmetic, not an official figure.
Practising an oral you cannot self-mark
The oral is the paper you judge worst from the inside. You cannot hear your own intonation while you are producing it, and three of the five criteria follow you across the whole passation instead of sitting inside one answer. The practice that pays is spoken aloud, timed and recorded.
Work the two parts in the order the exam runs them, because the débat inherits whatever the monologue committed you to. A timed B2 speaking exercise gives you the shape of it, and a full B2 mock tells you where the oral stands against your other three papers.
- 1Turn a short news item into one question that has two defensible answers. Say it out loud before you have an opinion about it.
- 2Speak on it for as long as the real monologue lasts, with a clock in front of you, and stop when it stops.
- 3Listen back once and mark only the places where the meaning broke. Those are the places the grid charges you for.
- 4Then defend the opposite position on the same question, which is the fastest way to find the objections an examiner reaches for.
- 5Rehearse from notes written as keywords, never as sentences. Anything written in full comes back as reading, and reading flattens the intonation the grid marks.
Where the free oral lesson picks up
Free lesson · study guide
The speaking exam, demystified
Thirty minutes alone with one document, then about twenty with an examiner. Here is the whole shape of the B2 oral, and where the 25 points sit.
Speaking exam questions
How long is the DELF B2 speaking exam?+
You get half an hour on your own with the document you drew, then about twenty in the room with the examiner. That examiner time covers both parts, monologue first, débat second. The other three papers are sat separately: see the B2 exam in full.
Do you choose your topic?+
Two documents are drawn and you keep one, so the choice is real but narrow. Decide fast, because the preparation clock is already running. The document you keep carries both parts: the débat argues with the position you defended, it does not move to a new subject.
How much of the mark is grammar and pronunciation?+
Fifteen of the marks are linguistic: vocabulary, morphosyntax and control of the sound system. They are awarded over the two parts together rather than part by part, so the débat can still lift them after a shaky monologue. The two task criteria, one per part, carry the rest.
Can AI feedback replace an examiner for speaking?+
No. Writing can be checked: our automatic grader has been run over DELF scripts that examiners had already marked. When the gap widens, it is the rubric that gets corrected. For speaking there is no set of examiner-marked recordings to check against yet. Of the numbers on this site, a speaking score is the one to trust least. Use it to see which criterion is losing you marks, not as a result. Only an approved exam centre can award a DELF diploma.
Keep reading
Related guides
The other B2 pages
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