Speaking exams

In the DELF B2 oral, the debate is the exam

You draw two subjects, choose one, and get thirty minutes alone with it. Then you give a five to seven minute presentation of the problem and your view, and spend ten to thirteen minutes defending that view while the examiner pushes back. Most candidates prepare the presentation carefully and the debate not at all, which is the wrong way round: the debate is more than half of it and none of it can be written in advance.

How it runs

You draw two subjects and keep one
Each is a short document raising a debatable question. Choose the one you can argue about, not the one you find most interesting. Those are often different, and only the first one helps you.
Thirty minutes of preparation
Enough time to plan the presentation and, more usefully, to guess what the examiner will attack. Spend the last ten minutes listing the objections to your own position rather than polishing the opening.
The presentation, five to seven minutes
Identify the problem the document raises, then present your position clearly and with reasons. This is the part you can plan, and it is worth a smaller share of the marks than the time suggests.
The debate, ten to thirteen minutes
The examiner argues against you, often from a position they do not hold, to see whether you can hold a line, concede a point without collapsing, and come back. This is the longest part and the one nobody rehearses.

Test format as published by the exam board on their own site, checked August 2026. Formats are revised from time to time and vary by grade or module, so confirm the current rules with the board before you sit it. ConvoLive is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any examining body.

Two moves for the debate

Conceding without losing the argument

Je vous accorde que cela coûterait plus cher au départ. Cela dit, je pense qu'il faut aussi considérer ce qu'on économise sur le long terme.

Agreeing with part of an objection and then turning it is exactly the B2 skill being examined. Digging in and repeating yourself scores worse than conceding well, and it is far harder to keep up for ten minutes.

Buying time without silence

C'est une bonne question. Je dirais que cela dépend surtout du contexte, parce que la situation n'est pas la même partout.

Two seconds of silence in a debate reads as having nothing to say. This is filler, but it is French filler with a subordinate clause in it, which is worth more than the silence it replaces.

The three that cost most

Preparing only the presentation

The debate runs roughly twice as long. Spending all thirty minutes perfecting an opening you deliver once, then improvising the longer half, is the most common misallocation in this exam.

Choosing the subject you know most about

Knowledge is not what is being marked, argument is. A subject you have no opinion about but can see two sides of is far easier to sustain than one you know deeply and agree with entirely.

Treating disagreement as failure

The examiner pushing back is the exam working as designed, not a sign you are doing badly. Candidates who read it as a verdict tend to fold, and folding is the thing that actually costs marks.

How to practise the debate

The presentation you can practise alone with a timer. The debate you cannot, because its whole difficulty is that somebody answers back and you have to respond to what they actually said. That is the part worth finding a partner for, human or otherwise. Take a position you half believe, have somebody argue the other side for ten minutes, and practise conceding and recovering rather than winning. Do it four times and the examiner pushing back stops feeling like a verdict.

What this will not do for you

This will not score you out of 25, and it will not replace the debate. An examiner arguing back with real conviction is the part that decides this exam and the part software is worst at. Use it for the presentation and for the reflex of answering in French without a pause, then find a human willing to disagree with you for ten minutes before the real thing.

Rehearse it out loud

Free, and the first run can be as bad as it needs to be. Nobody is listening.

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