How can I improve my oral presentations and my accent?

The first tip is to slow down! Way too often, you are so eager to get the oral presentation over with that you start to blurt out absolutely everything you’ve learnt in 30 seconds and then all your words get jumbled and your examiner is probably struggling to understand! Remember the oral exam is mostly just a short conversation with your examiner so take a breath and really show off to the examiner all the hard work you’ve put in. The best thing you can do is go about your daily life in Spanish to really immerse yourself in the language, so you can speak with fluency, rather than regurgitating what you’ve learnt. Watch French TV shows, listen to French music, pretend you are teaching the world how to make a sandwich in French, pretend your shampoo bottle in the shower is a César Award and you are making a French acceptance speech to the world. If your exam can be spontaneous and relaxed, you will gain marks. With your accent, remember a double ‘L’ sound turns into a soft ‘Y’ sound, so papillon is ‘pa-pi-yon’. The letter E at the start or end of a word is nearly always silent, same with an S so ‘les bêtes’ is pronounced ‘lih bet’. The ‘R’ sound is very harsh, it sounds almost like you have a sore throat and it should be like you are rolling your ‘R’s in Spanish but at the back of your throat instead of at the tip of your tongue.  The best way to improve your accent is to watch French TV, films and news to really pick up the way native speakers sound.