--- title: "TCF Canada expression écrite 2026: 3 tasks, 60 minutes" description: "Three tasks in 60 minutes: 60 to 120 words, then 120 to 150, then 120 to 180. What each asks for, how it is marked out of 20, and where marks are lost." canonical: https://francaisprep.com/tcf-canada/expression-ecrite last-updated: 2026-10-25 --- TCF Canada · Expression écrite # TCF Canada expression écrite: the three tasks, timed and marked Sixty minutes, three tasks, one mark out of 20 that becomes your NCLC writing level. Here is what each task asks for, what the marking criteria reward, the structures to walk in with, and the mistakes that cost candidates the most points. [Get your writing marked](/book?tier=one-on-one)[See the three tasks](#format) - Three tasks, 60 minutes, one mark out of 20 - Marked by Adèle by hand, never by software - Written for candidates targeting NCLC 7 and above ![Adèle, the native French teacher who runs Français Prep](/_next/image?url=%2Fadele.png&w=3840&q=75) Adèle SasonNative French teacher - every class, every correction By [Adèle Sason](/about), Français Prep · Updated 25 October 2026 Short answer The TCF Canada expression écrite is a 60-minute written test made of three tasks that get harder as you go: a short practical message of 60 to 120 words, a piece written for a readership you do not know of 120 to 150 words, and a comparison of two short texts that disagree, plus your own position, in 120 to 180 words. It produces a single mark out of 20, and that mark is what converts into your NCLC writing level for Express Entry. Most candidates lose points on the third task and on the clock rather than on grammar, which is why this page spends more time on task structure and timing than on verb tables. If you want your own tasks marked against those criteria, Adèle, a native French teacher, marks every writing submission on the live tiers by hand and never with software; the self-paced tier includes a model answer for every task instead. ![Adèle, the native French teacher who runs Français Prep](/_next/image?url=%2Fadele.png&w=3840&q=75) Not sure which of this you actually need? A 15-minute video call works out which of your four abilities is furthest from the level your application needs. It is free, and some candidates leave with a plan and no purchase. Adèle Sason · Native French teacher - every class, every correction [Book the free call](/book) Exam format ## The three expression écrite tasks The three tasks are sat back to back inside one 60-minute block. You choose how to split the hour, which is itself part of the test. | Task | What the instruction asks for | Length and suggested timing | | --- | --- | --- | | Tâche 1 - a short practical message60 to 120 words | You write to one person you already know: a friend, a neighbour, a colleague, a landlord. You give news, describe a situation, invite, apologise, ask for something or explain a change of plan. Everyday register, one clear purpose, one reader. | 60 to 120 words. Budget about 15 of your 60 minutes, including one minute to reread it. | | Tâche 2 - writing for a readership120 to 150 words | You write for people you have never met: a forum post, a blog entry, a letter to a magazine, a message to a group. You recount an experience or a situation and take a position on it, so the text has to stand on its own without the reader knowing you. | 120 to 150 words. Budget about 20 minutes, and leave the last two for agreements and verb endings. | | Tâche 3 - compare two texts, then take a side120 to 180 words | You are given two short texts on the same subject that reach different conclusions. You restate both positions in your own words, then give a reasoned point of view. This is a comparison task with a personal conclusion, not a free essay on the theme. | 120 to 180 words. Budget about 25 minutes. This is the task to protect time for, and the one candidates most often hand in unfinished. | Worked structures ## A skeleton for each task you can hold in your head Under exam pressure the structure is what goes first. These are skeletons, not model answers to memorise: examiners recognise a recycled opening immediately, and a template that ignores the instruction costs you the first criterion on the grid. - ### Tâche 1 60 to 120 words 1. A greeting fitted to the reader the instruction names (Salut Léa, or Bonjour Madame Roy,). 2. One sentence saying why you are writing at all. 3. Two or three sentences of concrete detail: what happened, when, where. 4. The request, the proposal or the apology, stated plainly in one sentence. 5. A closing line and a sign-off in the same register as the greeting. - ### Tâche 2 120 to 150 words 1. An opening line that names the subject and signals your angle on it. 2. The experience or situation, told in the past, anchored with a date, a place or a number. 3. What you take from it, with one connector doing genuine logical work. 4. One sentence acknowledging the opposite view, so the text is not a monologue. 5. A closing line addressed to the readership: a question, or an invitation to react. - ### Tâche 3 120 to 180 words 1. One sentence naming the subject and the fact that the two texts reach different conclusions. 2. The first text’s position in your own words, with the one piece of support it leans on. 3. The second text’s position, same treatment, introduced by a contrast connector. 4. Your own position, with one concrete reason rather than three vague ones. 5. One nuance or limit, so the conclusion does not read as a slogan. How it is marked ## What the examiner is actually looking at Your three tasks are marked against the same families of criteria. Knowing them changes what you do with your last five minutes. | Criterion | What earns marks | What costs marks | | --- | --- | --- | | Doing what the instruction says | The same task type, the same purpose and the same reader the instruction names. Tâche 3 answered as a comparison of the two texts, tâche 1 answered as a message to one person. | Answering the nearby question you would rather answer, dropping one of the two source texts, or expanding tâche 1 into an essay. | | Register and reader | One pronoun held from start to finish, a greeting and a sign-off that suit the reader, formality that matches a forum post rather than a formal letter. | Sliding between tu and vous inside one text, or opening a note to a friend with the formulas of a business letter. | | Coherence and cohesion | One idea per paragraph, connectors that carry real logic (d’une part, en revanche, ce qui explique que), and a final sentence that closes the text instead of stopping it. | A single undivided block of text, or connectors sprinkled as decoration with no logical relation behind them. | | Range and accuracy of vocabulary | Precise words for the topic, spelled correctly, and reformulation in your own words when you restate a source text. | Lifting phrases straight out of the tâche 3 texts, or one all-purpose word carrying the whole paragraph. | | Grammatical control | Tenses that stay consistent inside a narration, agreements checked, pronouns that refer to something, and at least some structures beyond simple sentences. | Past narration drifting between passé composé and présent, and adjective or past-participle agreements left unchecked. | | Length | Inside the range printed for that task, with the longest task still finished. | Well under the minimum, which leaves too little text to demonstrate anything; or far over it, which eats the minutes the next task needed. | Score conversion ## What your writing mark is worth in NCLC levels Your expression écrite mark converts to a single NCLC writing level, and that level is what earns CRS points. Only the writing column is filled in here; the other three sections are on the TCF Canada score chart. | NCLC level | TCF Canada expression écrite (mark out of 20) | | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Listening | Reading | Speaking | Writing | | | NCLC 10 | - | - | - | 16-20 | | NCLC 9 | - | - | - | 14-15 | | NCLC 8 | - | - | - | 12-13 | | NCLC 7 Level highlighted on this pageThe level most Express Entry profiles are aiming for | - | - | - | 10-11 | | NCLC 6 | - | - | - | 7-9 | | NCLC 5 | - | - | - | 6 | | NCLC 4 | - | - | - | 4-5 | Dashes mean the section is not covered on this page. The full four-skill conversion is on the [TCF Canada score chart](/tcf-canada/score-chart). What goes wrong ## The four mistakes that cost the most points Adèle sees the same four patterns in the writing candidates send her, and none of them is really about grammar. - ### Treating tâche 3 as an opinion essay The third task hands you two texts that disagree. If your answer never shows what each of them claims, you miss the criterion the task exists to test, however good your French is. - ### Spending half the hour on tâche 1 Tâche 1 is the shortest and the most tempting to over-polish. Candidates who write it slowly reach the hardest task with twelve minutes left and hand in something unfinished. - ### One register for three different readers The same neutral semi-formal voice for a note to a friend, a public forum post and a comparison of two texts reads as a memorised template. Match the pronoun, the greeting and the closing to the reader named in the instruction. - ### Leaving no time to reread Two minutes per task spent on agreements, verb endings and gender is worth more than two extra sentences. The same accord errors turn up on almost every paper Adèle marks. ![Close-up of a pair of hands writing in a spiral notebook](/_next/image?url=%2Fphotos%2Fhands-writing-notebook.jpg&w=3840&q=75) Timed, by hand, then marked against the examiners' criteria. How the practice works ## Timed, by hand, then marked The writing paper does not test what you know about French. It tests what you can produce in a fixed number of minutes, to a set length, on a subject you have not seen before. Practice that removes the clock has removed the thing being tested. So the loop is deliberately narrow: write one task to time, hand it in, get it back marked against the same criteria the examiners use, then rewrite only the part that lost the marks. Volume matters far less than whether anything you wrote was ever read by someone who could tell you why it scored what it did. Registration, dates and fees ## You register with a test centre, not with us The TCF Canada is administered by France Éducation International through approved test centres. You book a session with a centre directly, and the expression écrite is sat as part of the full TCF Canada, alongside the listening, reading and speaking sections. Each centre sets its own calendar, its own seat count and its own price in local currency, which is why the answers below have to come from your centre rather than from us. One question worth asking at registration: whether your centre runs the expression écrite on paper or on screen. It changes how you should practise, and it is the single most common surprise our candidates report on test day. Length is marked before a single word of your French is judged. Count a draft against the published range for the task you are writing. No account, nothing stored. [Count against the real limit](/tools/word-counter) Free, and no account. FAQ ## TCF Canada expression écrite: common questions ### How long is the TCF Canada expression écrite? 60 minutes for all three tasks in one sitting, with no break. That hour also covers reading the instructions and, in tâche 3, reading the two source texts, so your writing time is shorter than it looks. ### How many words do I have to write? 60 to 120 words for tâche 1, 120 to 150 for tâche 2, and 120 to 180 for tâche 3. The ranges are printed in the instructions. Write inside them: under the minimum leaves the examiner too little to mark, and far over it costs you the next task. ### What writing mark do I need for NCLC 7? The expression écrite produces a mark out of 20, and NCLC 7 sits at 10 to 11 on the conversion table used for Express Entry. Confirm that band against the current IRCC conversion table before planning your target around it. ### Which task do candidates struggle with most? Tâche 3. It is the only task that asks you to handle someone else’s argument before your own, it is the longest, and it comes last, when the clock is already against you. Practise it first, not last. ### Is the expression écrite handwritten or typed? That depends on the test centre and how it runs its sessions, so ask your centre when you register. If you do not know yet, practise both ways: handwriting changes your speed and your word count, and typing changes how easily you can restructure a paragraph. ### Can I use a dictionary? No. The expression écrite is a closed-book test: no dictionary, no phone, no notes, no spellchecker. That is why a short list of connectors and set phrases you can reproduce from memory is worth more than a wide passive vocabulary. ### Do spelling mistakes matter? Yes, spelling and lexical accuracy is one of the criteria, but a handful of slips in a clear, well-organised text does not sink your mark. Repeated basic errors do more damage: subject-verb agreement, past-participle agreement and gender. ### Can Adèle mark my writing before the exam? Yes. Every tier includes marked writing tasks, and the one-to-one tier includes unlimited marked tasks during your block. You get the mark, the criterion that lost the points, and a rewritten version of your weakest paragraph so you can see the gap. ### Can I retake only the expression écrite? Whether a partial re-sit of a single section is possible, and the minimum interval between two sittings, must be confirmed with your test centre and against the current official rules. Centres differ, so ask before you pay for a second session. Your writing mark out of 20 converts to NCLC on the [TCF Canada score chart](/tcf-canada/score-chart). The [TCF Canada preparation course](/tcf-canada-course) marks writing submissions every week in the live tiers; [book a placement call](/book) and send one task to start. Preparation tiers ## Writing improves when someone marks it Every tier includes marked writing tasks. If the expression écrite is the section standing between you and your target NCLC level, the one-to-one tier exists for exactly that. - ### Weekly plan The whole practice platform: every TCF and TEF Canada series, unlimited AI corrections, timed mock tests and the course lessons. CA$9.99per week Canadian dollars (CAD) Billed weekly, cancel any time. Access runs to the end of the week you paid for. [Start the weekly plan](/dashboard/premium) - Every practice series in all four exam sections - Unlimited AI writing and speaking corrections - Timed mock tests in the real exam format - Course lessons and a weekly study plan - ### Small-group live Weekly live classes with Adèle, in groups small enough that everyone speaks, plus marked writing and speaking. CA$449per 8-week block Canadian dollars (CAD) Eight weekly classes of 60 minutes: 8 hours of live teaching, CA$56 an hour, with your writing and speaking marked every week. [Join a small group](https://buy.stripe.com/fZu4gyfXZ9uK5Aj1P46Vq01) Full refund within 14 days of purchase if you have not taken a session. - Everything in the weekly plan - One 60-minute live class with Adèle every week - Marked writing submissions every week - Marked speaking recordings every week - Most popular ### One-to-one tutoring Private sessions scheduled around your test date, with a study plan built from your diagnostic results. CA$800per 10 sessions Canadian dollars (CAD) CA$80 an hour, booked around your test date: ten 60-minute sessions. [Book one-to-one](https://buy.stripe.com/dRm8wOfXZdL07IralA6Vq0a) Full refund within 14 days of purchase if you have not taken a session. - Everything in small-group live - Private 60-minute sessions scheduled around your test date - Study plan built from your diagnostic test - Unlimited marked writing and speaking during your block Not ready to commit to a block? Try a trial class. One 40-minute class with Adèle, one to one. The CA$30 comes off any block you book within 30 days. [Try one class for CA$30](https://buy.stripe.com/6oU4gy3bd9uK4wf0L06Vq0c) Not sure which tier fits? [Book a free 15-minute video call.](/book) Prices are in Canadian dollars and include any tax that applies. Exam registration fees are paid directly to your test centre and are not included in any tier. WHY PREPARE HERE ## Preparation built around the exam you are actually sitting Four things every tier includes, whether you study on your own or work with Adèle every week. - ### Marked against the real criteria Every writing and speaking task comes with a model answer and the marking grid, so you can see exactly what an examiner rewards. On the live tiers, Adèle marks your own work by hand and tells you which mistakes are costing you the most points. - ### Timed practice in the real exam format You practise each section under the clock, in the order and the length you will meet on test day, so the paper itself is never the surprise. - ### The NCLC threshold always in view Every section is worked against the NCLC thresholds IRCC publishes. A practice result is not an NCLC level; only your attestation gives one. Practice shows you where you lose marks. - ### Study from anywhere, in your timezone Everything is online, for candidates in Morocco, Algeria, Cameroon, India, France and Canada. The free plan and the weekly plan run entirely on your own clock. On the live tiers, if you miss a class the recording and the correction still reach you. OUR COMMITMENT ## What we promise, and what we will never claim ![](/lander/seal-badge.svg) Your result is decided by official examiners we have no contact with, so no honest preparation service can promise you a score. What we can commit to is the work: the corrections, the practice papers and the teaching hours you paid for. ### What we do not claim - We do not guarantee a TCF Canada or TEF Canada score, an NCLC level, or a number of CRS points. - We do not register you for the exam, and we have no influence over marking, exam dates or seat availability. - We are an independent preparation service, not an examiner and not an official test centre. ### Our commitment, in writing - On the live tiers, every writing and speaking task you submit is marked by Adèle herself, never by software. The weekly plan gives unlimited AI corrections instead, and the free plan includes three. - Prices are in Canadian dollars and include any tax that applies. Exam registration is never included: that fee goes to your test centre. - We will never invent a testimonial, a statistic or a pass rate. Marked writing ## Send Adèle one expression écrite and see where you stand One timed task, marked against the criteria on this page: the mark out of 20, the criterion that cost you the most, and a rewritten version of your weakest paragraph. [Book a marked writing session](/book?tier=one-on-one)[Compare the tiers](#tiers) Prices are in Canadian dollars and include any tax that applies. Exam registration is paid to your test centre and is never included. Where these facts come from France Éducation International publishes the criteria orders for the TCF Canada expression écrite - linguistic, pragmatic and sociolinguistic - and a level per task. It does not publish a weighted marking grid, so any detailed per-point rubric you meet on a preparation site, including the numbers other sites attribute to the board, is that site's invention rather than an official document. - [France Éducation International: TCF Canada](https://www.france-education-international.fr/test/tcf-canada) - [France Éducation International: TCF reference site](https://www.france-education-international.fr/sites-ressources/tcf) - [IRCC: Express Entry language test results and NCLC equivalencies](https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/documents/language-test.html) Exam boards reissue formats, fees and conversion tables without announcing it. Where a number here matters to a decision that costs money, check it against the source above rather than trusting any preparation site, including this one. ## Keep reading - [TCF Canada 2026: NCLC 7 needs 453 reading, 458 listeningFour tests in 2 h 47: listening 39 questions in 35 min, reading 39 in 60, writing 3 tasks in 60, speaking 3 in 12. Scored to 699 and out of 20.](/tcf-canada) - [TCF Canada expression orale 2026: 12 min, NCLC 7 at 10/20Three tasks in twelve minutes, marked out of 20, where 10 to 11 is NCLC 7. What the examiner listens for, and the per-task split FEI never published.](/tcf-canada/expression-orale) - [TCF Canada score chart 2026: NCLC 7 = 453 CE, 458 CONCLC 7 is 453 to 498 reading, 458 to 502 listening and 10 to 11 out of 20 in writing and speaking. Full conversion table from NCLC 4 to NCLC 10.](/tcf-canada/score-chart) - [How to pass the TCF Canada in 2026: there is no pass markNo pass mark exists. You need your programme's NCLC level in every section, usually NCLC 7: 453 reading, 458 listening, 10 out of 20 in production.](/how-to-pass-tcf-canada) --- For agents: site index https://francaisprep.com/llms.txt, developer access https://francaisprep.com/developers, and TCF or TEF to NCLC conversion over a plain GET at https://api.francaisprep.com/v1/score/convert?exam=tcf_canada&listening=512&reading=470&writing=12&speaking=11 (exam is tcf_canada or tef_canada).