TV5Monde to prepare for TCF Canada, what does the site offer and how to use it?

The free test page says FEI recommends TV5Monde for the compulsory tests. Here we look at what is inside. We read the site’s TCF pages, and what follows comes from those pages. The advice on how to use them is ours. The site itself is in French.

What the site offers

• Practice series. The page lists 17 series. Each has 40 questions in all, split into three parts, listening, language structure and reading. You answer with no time limit and see the correction. 17 series of 40 questions make 680 questions. The TCF home page rounds that to 600 and the booklets article says “more than 600”.
• A simulator. A 90-minute test, no break, that reuses questions from the practice series. The FAQ mentions 80 questions and an “indication of my level”. There is no score out of 699.
• Downloadable booklets. The same series as PDFs with an answer sheet, a correction grid and the audio as MP3. TV5Monde says they help when your connection is poor. The article announces more than 600 questions in total.
• Podcasts and a free mobile app, for practising from a phone.
• The rest of the site. Videos with exercises sorted by level from A1 to B2 and by theme, grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation sheets, and a level test. This content doesn’t prepare a specific exam format, but it helps you improve your French.

The site is free, with no visible subscription, and TV5Monde says the questions were designed with the FEI TCF team. It also states that the practice and the simulation give no official certificate.

What the site doesn’t do

• No writing and no speaking. The site and its FAQ offer no task to write or to say. So nothing corrects a text or a recording.
• Not the TCF Canada format. The FAQ compares the simulation with the TCF tout public, which has 76 questions on paper and 91 on computer, and a language structures test. TCF Canada has 39 listening questions in 35 minutes and 39 reading questions in 60 minutes, as the TCF Canada format explains, and has no language structures test (see grammar). The 90-minute simulation therefore doesn’t reproduce your exam.
• No reliable score. The site says it itself. Results do not guarantee the official level. FEI’s scale weights each question by its difficulty, so a percentage of right answers can’t be converted into an NCLC.
• No level label per question, as far as we saw on the series page. You can’t tell whether a question is at B2.

How to use it test by test

Listening. Do the practice series, but play each document only once, as in TCF Canada. Then replay it with the transcript to understand your mistakes. TV5Monde’s strategies page advises noting key words and then gradually doing without, and reading the four answers before the audio. Our own set is in listening practice.

Reading. Time the reading part yourself, because the site’s practice sets no duration. Aim for about 1 min 30 per question, meaning 60 minutes for 39. Our hands-on version is in reading practice.

Language structures. This part doesn’t exist in TCF Canada. Use it only to revise grammar and vocabulary. To know which structures matter in your texts, see grammar in TCF Canada.

Writing and speaking. The site doesn’t help here. Use the free FEI papers, listed in the free test page, or our practice prompts.

Suggested use

This is our suggestion, not a TV5Monde or FEI rule. Two practice series a week for comprehension, timed. The simulator now and then, to hold out for 90 minutes in one go, keeping in mind that its format is not your test’s. The rest of your week goes to writing and speaking, which TV5Monde doesn’t cover. For the overall organisation, see how to prepare for TCF Canada and, on the book side, preparation books.

Once you have written a task, get it corrected. The corrector flags every mistake and estimates your NCLC, with a limited free trial. NCLC Prep corrects writing only, not speaking or the comprehension tests that TV5Monde trains.