The calendar is the wrong place to start
It is late. The exam centre’s page is open in another tab, and you have just downloaded an eight-week plan. Week one: listening every morning, a reading passage at lunch, vocabulary in the evening.
It looks serious, and it is comforting, because it tells you exactly what to do on Monday. That comfort is the problem. The plan was written before anyone knew who would follow it.
Picture two candidates who download it on the same night. The plan sends both of them to listening drills for a week.
- Has watched French series for years; her listening is already past what her application needs.
- Has never written Tâche 3 against the clock.
- She spends the week polishing a strength.
- Reads technical French every day.
- Freezes the moment he has to speak.
- He spends the week avoiding the thing that will sink him, and the plan has given him permission to.
Popular advice makes the same mistake more politely: rotate the four sections evenly, one a day, and everything rises together. It sounds balanced.
On this exam I think balance is the wrong goal, for a reason that has nothing to do with French and everything to do with how IRCC reads your result.
Your weakest section is your result
The TCF Canada is four separate tests in one sitting, and IRCC turns each one into its own NCLC level. The immigration programmes then set a minimum for all four abilities:
- The Federal Skilled Worker Program asks NCLC 7 in each for French as a first official language.
- The Canadian Experience Class asks NCLC 7 for jobs in TEER 0 or 1 and NCLC 5 for TEER 2 or 3.
Nothing averages. Three sections at NCLC 9 and one at NCLC 6 is, for a programme that wants 7, a miss.
| Section | Format | Time | Result | NCLC 7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Compréhension orale (listening) | 39 multiple-choice questions | 35 minutes | A score up to 699 | 458–502 |
| Compréhension écrite (reading) | 39 multiple-choice questions | 60 minutes | A score up to 699 | 453–498 |
| Expression écrite (writing) | 3 tasks | 60 minutes | A mark out of 20 | 10–11 |
| Expression orale (speaking) | 3 tasks, face to face with an examiner | 12 minutes, 2 of them to prepare | A mark out of 20 | 10–11 |
Read the last column as your real target: four numbers, not one. And notice how unforgiving it is at the edges.
- in reading: NCLC 7
- 455
- in listening: NCLC 6
- 455
A candidate who thinks of “my level” as one thing will plan for one thing. The exam does not see you that way, and neither should your plan.
So here is the rule I would build everything on.
Until every section clears its target, the hours belong to the one furthest from it. Not exclusively, but first.
Measure before you plan
You cannot rank sections you have not measured, and most candidates measure the wrong way: a few practice questions here, a writing task there, judged by how it felt.
Feelings are a poor instrument. Listening feels hard for almost everyone, so it gets the hours; speaking feels personal, so it gets put off.
Sit one timed paper in each section, in exam conditions:
- the 35 minutes of listening;
- the hour of reading;
- the hour of writing;
- the twelve minutes of speaking aloud, recorded if you are alone.
Then treat the result as a first estimate, not a verdict. One paper is one sample.
Rank the gaps, then be ruthless
Line up your four results against your four targets and count each gap in levels, never in points: a score out of 699 and a mark out of 20 do not compare.
Then rank them, furthest first. Here is what that looks like for a candidate I have made up for the purpose.
- Speaking2 levels short6 out of 20: NCLC 5
- Writing1 levels short8 out of 20: NCLC 6
- Reading1 levels short430 out of 699: NCLC 6
- Listening0 levels short515 out of 699: NCLC 8, already past the target
This candidate will be tempted to keep doing listening, because listening is where the good news is. Resist that.
- Speaking gets the most time,
- then writing and reading,
- and listening gets a light touch: enough to keep it from slipping, no more.
Being ruthless does not mean abandoning a section. It means refusing to let a comfortable one eat the hours an uncomfortable one needs.
Then rank inside each section
Writing and speaking are three tasks each, and they are not equally hard. If your Tâche 1 is sound and your Tâche 3 falls apart, a week of “writing practice” spread evenly across all three is a week two-thirds wasted.
Our guides to the writing test and the speaking test set out each task’s format.
Beware the flattering score
The most dangerous number in your preparation is a good score earned under easy conditions:
- a question answered after asking for an explanation;
- a writing task drafted with a model answer still on the screen;
- a listening set you have already heard once.
Each produces a score, and each is higher than the one you would get on the day. Add enough of them up and a plan will tell you that you are ready before you are.
So weigh your evidence, and be harsher with yourself than feels fair.
Recent work matters more than old, but measure “recent” by how much you have done since, not by the calendar. A mock you sat three weeks ago is still your best evidence if you have sat nothing since.
A plan has to change its mind
A plan is a forecast, and a forecast that is never re-run is just a hope with dates on it.
After every mock, rank your gaps again. Expect movement in both directions:
- a listening level that was comfortable in week one can sag once you stop practising it;
- a speaking gap can close faster than you feared once the three tasks have a shape.
The plan that served you in week one may be exactly wrong by week four.
This is why I distrust plans measured in hours. Hours say how much you did, not whether the gap moved. Four numbers, your latest level in each section beside its target, are enough to decide next week.
Our guide to tracking your progress covers what to record, and our guide to the error notebook covers turning the mistakes behind those numbers into practice.
The date changes the work
An exam date should change what you practise, not only how anxious you feel.
- Short practice sessions build the skills,
- a task at a time,
- mistakes fixed one by one.
- The balance should tip to full timed tests,
- because what is left to train is the exam itself:
- the clock, the length of the sitting, the discipline of leaving a question you cannot crack.
A late mock also does a job most candidates skip: it tells you whether to sit on that date at all.
What FEI’s rules mean for that choice
FEI’s rules make that an honest question rather than a gamble.
- between two sittings, as many sittings as you like
- 20 days
- the sessions since which writing and speaking are not re-marked, for about a year
- 1 Sept 2026
- a result’s validity from the date it is issued
- 2 years
With no re-marking, the mark you get there is the mark you keep.
Our guides to the wait between sittings and to the suspension of re-marking go through what each rule means for you.
What it cannot tell you
The plan is practice guidance built on Salut Canada’s own marks. It does not predict your result. Salut Canada is not FEI, and only FEI marks your TCF.
It also sees only what you do in Salut Canada. A teacher, a novel or an evening of French radio will make you better, and none of it reaches the plan until it shows up in your results.
That is a limit, but it is also the point: the only evidence worth planning around is the kind the exam will ask for.
Sources
France Éducation international (FEI), TCF Canada page: the four sections, their questions, tasks and timings, the 20 days between sittings, the two-year validity and the suspension of re-marking from the sessions of 1 September 2026; FEI, Understanding my TCF results (Comprendre mes résultats au TCF): a score for each comprehension section and a mark out of 20 for each expression section; Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), Express Entry: Language test results: the TCF Canada results each NCLC level stands for, and the minimum levels of the Federal Skilled Worker Program and the Canadian Experience Class. Checked on 25 October 2026.