French language examination: Bachelor

In the event of the divergence between the different linguistic versions of the present informations, the French version shall prevail.

By virtue of Article 108, §1st of the decree of 7 november 2013, anyone not demonstrating sufficient French language proficiency will not be admitted to the first-year undergraduate examinations.

This proff may be provided, or:

• by the holding of a diploma, certificate or secondary school certificate referred to in Article 108, §2 of the Decree of 7 november 2013 delivered in the French Community or recognising studies including sufficient French language teaching; the Government lays down the minimum conditions that these studies must satisfy;
• by passing a special examination devised for the purpose by one or several higher education establishments in accordance with provisions adopted by the Government (Decree of the Government of the French Community of 28 October 2010 relating to French language proficiency in higher education examinations);
• by passing one of the examinations, tests or competitions for admission to the higher education studies provided by this decree and offered in the French Community. The universities hold French Language Proficiency exams at least twice per academic year.

The French Language Proficiency examination for the academic year 201–2019 will be held at the UCL on the following dates:

You can download the enrolment form for the French Language Proficiency examination (FR)

This examination may be sat twice during one academic year.
Registration procedures must be done, at the latest,

one week before the chosen date.
Students enrolling for a second time for this examination will be required to complete all the formalities (registration and payment).

The examination includes two tests :

• Written test, without dictionary – AM (2 hours)

  This test is designed to ascertain whether the candidate is likely to understand a written discourse at a sustained level, mainly scientific discourse, and provide a summary in a limited number of lines (twenty) while respecting the structure of the text (importance of logical articulations: cause, consequence, etc.) and its contents (no personal opinions, no extrapolations in the written summary). The candidate must, however, be able to construct "original" sentences (cutting and pasting the original text into the summary is not allowed) to satisfy the summary criteria. The texts used in the tests are taken from the newspaper Le Monde diplomatique (for the electronic version) and consist of about two to three pages (A4 format). They are mostly general articles (natural phenomena, (bio)ethical issues, art/music, etc.) in order not to present candidates with texts that are too technical and specific to a particular subject.

• Oral test – PM (average 15 minutes)

  Candidates will be informed of the time of the oral test in the morning, during the written test. Candidates will be asked "personal" questions (presentation, study plan, motivation, etc.) and questions about the text (for instance, personal opinion). A pass is awarded if the student can demonstrate proficiency in the French language in his oral and written tests at a level equivalent to level B2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages published by the European Council (Decree of the Government of the French Community of 28 October 2010 on French language proficiency in higher education exams).