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TEF Canada and TCF Canada comparison and preparation material

remkamal

Newbie
Aug 12, 2021
5
0
Hello everyone,
I found a few old topics comparing the tests and some posts on preparation, but not all together. Perhaps we could have everything in one place to help newcomers like me.
I am DELF B2/C1 and I wonder if I should focus on TEF Canada ...or ... TCF Canada? The goal is the Express Entry Skilled immigration.
Please share your thoughts and most importantly where to get 'new' preparation materials, since I noticed many people in recent 2 years were mentioning about changes?
Would appreciate any help!
Thanks.
 

thaovy99

Hero Member
Jun 26, 2019
292
162
Hi, I am also a french speaker that just got my TCF Canada done last month. I was also looking for the difference between TCF and TEF.

So basically, there is 1 main difference between those 2.
TEF is organized by a private institution, even though it is more well-known in Canada, there are very few people outside Canada ever heard about that test.
TCF Canada, on the other hand, is organized by France Education which is also the institution that organizes DELF and DALF. For people who have learned french in school, we were introduced to TCF test at an early stage and it is actually a quite common test for people to take to go study or work in France.

I've seen a few opinions about which test is harder and honestly, I find them at the same difficulty level.

For Compréhension Orale : TEF lets you hear the recording twice. TCF only lets you hear it once. Questions from A1 to B1 for both are quite obvious. Questions targeting B2+ are more intense and difficult. Either you hear it one or twice, a certain level of concentration is needed during the whole section. I've been learning french for 16 years and speaking french on a daily basis for the last 5 years, I got C1 in CO. Oh and some of the questions have the quebecois accent in it, still comprehensible but surely need beforehand preparation.

For Compréhension Écrite : TEF is more like IELTS where you have 1 document and then 4-5 questions related to that doc. TCF has 1 document for each question, which basically makes you read more. But, the questions in TCF are organized in an increasing level of difficulty so it is pretty easy to answer the first 15-19 questions. It allows people to manage their time and effort in order to get the target they want.

For Expression Écrite: TEF has 2 tasks and TCF has 3. But all the 3 tasks in TCF are really easy and short. 1st task 60-100 words, 2nd 80-120 words, 3rd 100-160 words. 1 hour. You just need to memorize some specific structure and expressions for each task and it should not have any major problem. I almost got C2 with a quite affordable range of vocabulary and grammar.

For Expression Orale : TCF is more difficult on this one as the 3rd speaking task ask you to speak uninterruptedly for 4 minutes and 30 seconds without any preparation. The first 2 sections are affordable, questions are about you, your background and an Jeux de rôle in the 2nd section. I got an early C1 score for this section. It demands a lots of preparation and work previously to the test but the procedure during the speaking part is quite natural as well.

Preparation materials : I found an amazing website where you can pratice for TCF for free and get the score calculated at the end of your test. It`s tcfca.com
I paid for the gold version where I got to do some more test for people targeting C1+ like me. During the real test, I met 2-3 questions in CO and CE that I already went by on tcfca.com . After that, there is TV5Monde and RFI Savoirs who also have a wide range of preparation test for TCF. I personally feel like there is more TCF materials than TEF and all of those materials are really close to the real test.

So, if you are confident about your french ability, TCF or TEF shouldn't be a problem. Just make sure you have at least 1 month to prepare and to get familiar to the test structure. For Express Entry, if you want to put french as your first language, I would say NCLC 8+ should be the target (late B2 +). If you want to put french as your second language then NCLC 6+ should be fine (late B1+). After all, it also depends on other factors of your profile to be able to identity a relevant target but as soon as you have it, you can start on planing the preparation.

Good luck :)
 

Naila Iffat

Member
Mar 25, 2014
18
0
This is very informative! Thank you! Can you share any more links that one can use to prepare for either of these tests?