TEF Canada expression orale section B: persuade the other person

Section B of the TEF Canada speaking test - expression orale section B - gives you the ten minutes after Section A and one job: argumenter pour convaincre, to argue in order to persuade. You present a document to someone who has not seen it and try to talk them into taking part. Here is the detail that changes how you should train: by the test designer's own account, your interlocutor is instructed never to agree with you.

The resistance is the task working correctly, not a verdict on your French. When the examiner objects, sighs or changes the subject, they are doing their job. Candidates who fold at the first « non merci » lose marks on a mechanic they could have seen coming - so the real work of Section B is learning to press on, politely, after a refusal.

What does Section B actually test?

A typical prompt: you have read an advert for a cooking workshop, you mention it to a friend who says they have no time, and you try to convince them to sign up with you. Two facts from the same official source should shape everything you do. Your interlocutor will never agree, and you should assume they know nothing about the topic - they have not read the advert. A vague, enthusiastic pitch full of « c'est très intéressant » teaches them nothing and earns you nothing. For where this sits in the fifteen-minute test, see the expression orale section page.

The register also shifts from Section A. There you called a stranger and used vous; here the prompt hands you a friend. Decide tu or vous in your first sentence and hold it. What the marker hears is not the choice itself but the candidate who slides between the two every few sentences.

How should you divide the ten minutes?

• Present the document - two to three minutes. What, where, when, how much, who it is for.
• Give your view and illustrate it - about two minutes.
• Handle objections and propose - everything left.

The commonest misallocation is spending six minutes describing the advert. A clean description settles your nerves, but it leaves your interlocutor exactly where they started, and the mark is decided in the last five minutes. Treat those timings as guidance and verify the current speaking format against lefrancaisdesaffaires.fr before your sitting.

What does a persuasive argument sound like?

A bare claim does not convince. An argument that lands has four parts: what you claim, why it is true, a concrete example, and the benefit for the person in front of you. Aim every argument at what the prompt tells you about the friend - short of time, shy, new to Canada, not sporty. That one line is your angle, and an argument cut for that person does the work of three generic ones.

Le vrai intérêt, c'est l'horaire. C'est le samedi matin, et toi tu me répètes que tes semaines sont pleines. Tu pars à neuf heures, tu es rentré pour midi. Ça ne te prend aucune soirée.

The real draw is the timing. It's Saturday morning, and you keep telling me your weeks are full. You leave at nine, you're home by noon. It costs you no evening at all. Four parts, three short sentences, no rare vocabulary. Compare « c'est bien parce que c'est pratique et pas cher », which is two claims and no reason. A B1 speaker lists three advantages flat; a B2 speaker ranks - one main idea, a supporting one, an example - which is the level the federal routes and NCLC 7 ask for.

How do you answer an objection without folding?

Two reactions cost you marks: ignoring the objection and ploughing on, or collapsing - « ah oui, tu as raison, tant pis ». Between them is the move that scores, in two beats: concede, then turn. Keep the concession to half a sentence; a concession that runs three sentences has become a surrender.

• « C'est vrai que ce n'est pas donné. Maintenant, regarde ce que ça représente à la sortie. » - True, it's not cheap. Now look at what you walk away with.
• « Je comprends, et c'est justement pour ça que ce format te conviendrait. » - I understand, and that's exactly why this format would suit you.
• « D'accord, tu n'as pas le temps. Et si tu venais une seule fois, juste pour voir ? » - Fine, you have no time. What if you came just once, to see?
• « Qu'est-ce qui te retient, exactement ? » - What's holding you back, exactly? - a question in reserve, to relaunch the exchange and mine the answer for your next argument.

Introducing a counter-argument and then rebutting it is a B2 descriptor absent from the level below. A candidate who answers « oui mais moi je pense que » to every objection stays in the same place for ten minutes; one who grants a point before turning it shows something B1 does not contain.

Which objections should you expect, and how do you close?

Three land almost every time: the price, the time, and « ce n'est pas pour moi ». Prepare a way to answer each - never a written script, which dies at the first interruption. For price, shrink the sum to a smaller unit or compare it to something they already spend; for time, shrink the commitment to a single trial; for “not for me”, attack the image itself with an example of someone like them. Then close - don't let the exchange fade when the examiner calls time: « bon, écoute, penses-y et tu me dis d'ici vendredi. Je peux nous inscrire tous les deux si tu veux. »

One honest word. This section rewards a willingness to keep going after a polite refusal, which is a matter of upbringing as much as language - in many cultures, insisting after a “no” reads as rude. If backing off is your instinct, that, not vocabulary, is what to practise, and it is quicker to fix than a grammar gap. The reflex of asking a sharp question to reopen a stalled exchange is the same one the Section-A question drill builds, and the whole speaking test is worked with marked models in the course.