How to practise TCF Canada writing on your own, a 4-week plan

France Éducation international (FEI) points out that the TCF Canada is not based on a course syllabus but on your ability to use French. For writing, that means you improve by writing, getting corrected and rewriting. This plan organises that work over four weeks, at about 45 minutes a day, five days a week.

It assumes your level is already close to B1 and that you are aiming for NCLC 7, which means at least 10 out of 20. Preparing the other tests is covered in how to prepare for the TCF Canada.

The mistake log

Before you start, open a notebook or a document with four columns. It is the core tool of the plan.

Date	Wrong sentence	Corrected sentence	Rule in one line
example	je suis désolé (written by a woman)	je suis désolée	the adjective agrees with the writer

Each time a mistake comes back a second time, highlight it. Those are the lines you reread before each text.

Week 1, the diagnostic

• Day 1. Write all three tasks in a row, in 60 minutes, as on exam day. The timers for tasks 1, 2 and 3 give 10, 15 and 30 minutes, which leaves 5 minutes to reread. That split is our suggestion, not an FEI rule.
• Day 2. Have the three texts corrected and fill in the log.
• Days 3 to 5. Read the pages for task 1, task 2 and task 3, one a day, then rewrite your day 1 text for that task.

By the end of the week, you know which task is weakest and which three mistakes come back most.

Week 2, tasks 1 and 2

• One text a day, alternating task 1 and task 2, on a different practice topic each time.
• Before writing, reread the highlighted lines in your log. Afterwards, reread your text only for those mistakes.
• In task 1, check the register first (tu or vous) and that each point of the consigne has its sentence.
• In task 2, check the past tenses. The page on task 2 with no such experience helps when the topic means nothing to you.

Goal you can check. Two texts in a row with none of the three mistakes from the diagnostic.

Week 3, task 3

• Three full task 3 answers in 30 minutes each, on three different topics.
• Two days of targeted work. Rewrite only the first part of a text so it compares the two documents instead of summarising them, then add a concession to the second part. The linking words page gives you the words for it.
• Compare one of your answers with the two versions in B1 or B2 writing.

Goal you can check. A task 3 of 140 to 175 words, written in 30 minutes, whose first sentence compares the two authors.

Week 4, mock exams

• Days 1 and 3. All three tasks in 60 minutes, on topics you have never written.
• Days 2 and 4. Correction, log, then a rewrite of the weakest task.
• Day 5. Reread the whole log. Write nothing new.

Goal you can check. All three tasks inside their word ranges in 60 minutes, twice in a row.

Getting your texts corrected

This plan adds up to about twenty texts. So you need a way to get them corrected, and each way has its limits.

• NCLC Prep. Two free corrections with no account, then a third with an email. After that you need a pass, with 20 corrections over 30 days or 50 over 90 days. It is an AI estimate, not the official mark.
• An assistant such as ChatGPT. Useful for spotting mistakes, unreliable for a score. Our page can ChatGPT score your writing gives a free prompt.
• A teacher or a language exchange partner. Slower, but they see what an AI does not, such as a text too close to a memorised model.
• Yourself, a few days later. Reread a text written three days earlier with your log beside it. Mistakes are easier to see cold.

The finish line

At the end of the four weeks, the my progress page on NCLC Prep shows six checks for writing, with your latest score per task. It is our checklist, not a prediction that you will pass. If one task stays under 10, go back to the week that covers it rather than writing more texts at random. If you are stuck at 9, read stuck at 9 out of 20.