telc Start Deutsch 1 · telc Deutsch A1 · Mündliche Prüfung
The speaking exam, part by part
What actually happens in the room, quoted from the exam board’s own document — including who your partner is and how much they matter.
| Duration | about 15 minutes |
|---|---|
| Format | Group exam — usually four candidates |
| Preparation time | None |
| Examiners | 2 |
The parts, in order
- Sich vorstellen — about 3 minutes
- Um Informationen bitten und Informationen geben — about 4 minutes
- Bitte formulieren und darauf reagieren — about 4 minutes
Your partner, and how much they affect you
The exam centre decides who you are paired with — you cannot choose, and you will usually meet them minutes beforehand. You cannot agree a strategy in advance either: an invigilator has to ensure candidates do not talk to each other during the preparation time. What protects you is not that your partner is irrelevant. It is that the examiner is instructed to intervene: if a candidate falters, or takes over the conversation too much, the interlocutor is required to step in with prompts. So a dominant partner does cost you something, and the examiner is supposed to correct for it. Your own job is to take your turn deliberately rather than talk over them: ask a direct question, then answer it yourself at length.
Die Prüfung wird möglichst von zwei lizenzierten telc Prüfenden durchgeführt (eine Prüferin bzw. ein Prüfer wird auch akzeptiert).
Der sogenannte Interlokutor macht alle Ansagen, stellt ggf. Nachfragen, wenn eine Äußerung unklar oder unvollständig war, und bewertet.
Who marks you
Two examiners, not one. Each has their own rating sheet and records an assessment independently while you speak. After you leave the room they compare their marks and agree a single final mark, which is entered on your own answer sheet. The exact procedure differs between exams, which is why the official wording is quoted below rather than summarised.
Der sogenannte Assessor bewertet ebenfalls die Kandidatenleistung und stimmt diese am Ende mit dem Interlokutor ab.
Für die Bewertung der Leistung der Teilnehmenden ist der Bewertungsbogen M10 vorgesehen.
Careful: a similar exam, a different format
Exams with almost the same name do not share a speaking format. The differences below are real, and turning up prepared for the wrong one is a common way to lose marks.
| telc Deutsch A2·B1 | Sich vorstellen · Anschlussfragen beantworten · Gemeinsam etwas planen · Meinung begründen | None |
|---|
Where this comes from
Every statement on this page is quoted from the exam board’s own published document, in the original German, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
telc Start Deutsch 1 · telc Deutsch A1 — Übungstest 1 — telc gGmbH, telc_deutsch_a1_uebungstest_1.pdf — Informationen, Mündliche Prüfung
We only publish a format we can quote from the board’s own document. Where a page is missing, we have not verified it yet — we would rather say nothing than tell you the wrong task.