TCF Canada speaking task 2: the interaction exercise

What task 2 asks you to do

The TCF Canada speaking test lasts 12 minutes, including 2 minutes of preparation, and has three tasks. According to France Éducation international, task 2 is an interaction exercise with preparation (« exercice en interaction »): you have to get information in an everyday situation, and the instructions set the status of both people in the conversation.

• Time: 5 min 30 s in total, including 2 minutes of preparation, which leaves 3 min 30 s for the exchange.
• Your role: the person who needs the information, in the situation described by the instructions.
• Who you talk to: the examiner, in the role the instructions give them.
• The goal: getting information.

Our practice prompts look like this: you want to sign your child up for a class, rent a flat, take an evening course or set up a car share, and the examiner plays the employee, the landlord or the colleague. These situations are original, written for this site.

So you lead the exchange: you ask the questions, follow up and wrap up. The whole point is to come in with enough leads to keep the conversation going for 3 min 30 s, without asking pointless questions.

How task 2 is marked

France Éducation international assesses speaking with three families of criteria: linguistic (vocabulary range and control, grammatical accuracy, fluency, pronunciation, overall flow), pragmatic (interaction, discourse structure, coherence and cohesion, topic development) and sociolinguistic (fit to the communication situation). The examiner assesses you live, then a second grader assesses the recording, independently and double-blind. The three tasks get a single score out of 20.

In task 2, interaction is what shows the most. In practice:

• Do you get the useful information? Every point in the prompt covered, plus questions that follow from the answers.
• Are your questions varied and well formed? Intonation, « est-ce que », inversion, indirect questions: alternating shows your command of grammar and register.
• Do you react to the answers? Picking up a piece of information, asking for clarification, checking you understood: that is the difference between an exchange and a questionnaire.
• Does the register fit the role? « Vous » with an employee or a landlord, « tu » if the prompt makes the examiner a friend; either way, phrases to open and close the exchange.
• Is the exchange structured? An opening that sets the scene, questions in a logical order, an ending.
• Are you easy to understand? Fluency and pronunciation are official criteria; our tool does not score them.

A 5-step method

1. The 2 minutes of preparation: leads, not a script

Read the instructions and identify three things: who you are, who you are talking to and what you need to find out. Then prepare:

• one question for each point in the prompt (for the prompt below: days and times, levels, price, equipment, registration);
• two or three “extra” questions linked to your situation: places left, discounts, a trial session, payment;
• your opening line and your closing line;
• the register: « vous » with an employee or a landlord, « tu » if the prompt makes the other person a friend.

Prepare leads, not ready-made sentences: during the exchange, listening is what makes the difference.

2. Open: greet, set the scene, announce

« Bonjour ! J’aimerais inscrire mon fils de huit ans aux cours de natation, et j’aurais d’abord quelques questions à vous poser. » (Hello! I’d like to sign my eight-year-old son up for swimming lessons, and I have a few questions first.) In one sentence, the other person knows who you are, what you want and how the exchange will go.

3. Ask: one piece of information at a time

A question that bundles three questions forces the other person to choose, and you lose the thread. Ask them one by one, in a logical order (first what everything else depends on: age, level, times), varying the form: see the four question forms.

4. Listen and bounce back

Every answer is a chance to show you are interacting: pick up a piece of information (« Le samedi à 10 h, c’est parfait », Saturday at 10 is perfect), ask for clarification (« C’est-à-dire ? Il y a un test avant ? », meaning? Is there a test first?), check (« Si je comprends bien, … », if I understand correctly…) or adapt your request (« Le mercredi, ce serait un peu juste pour nous », Wednesday would be a bit tight for us).

5. Wrap up: sum up, thank, say goodbye

A one-sentence summary shows you have kept track of what matters: « Alors je récapitule : le samedi à 10 h, dix séances, un bonnet obligatoire et l’inscription en ligne. » Say what happens next if you can (« Je m’en occupe ce soir », I’ll sort it out tonight), thank the person, then say goodbye.

One prompt, two dialogues: B1 then C1

This prompt was written for this site, like all our practice prompts: it is not a real exam question. The employee’s answers are invented too; they differ slightly between the two dialogues because the second candidate asks different questions.

Dialogue 1 — estimated B1

Candidate’s lines: 96 words

The dialogue does the job: all five points in the prompt are covered (times, levels, price, equipment, registration), plus two simple extra questions (how long a lesson lasts, the viewing gallery), and the candidate stays polite. What keeps it at B1:

• no scene-setting at the start: « Je voudrais des informations » (“I’d like some information”) does not say what the candidate wants to do (sign their son up);
• short questions, nearly always in the same form: « C’est quel jour, les cours ? », « Et c’est combien ? », « Et pour l’inscription, comment je fais ? »;
• no reaction to the answers: when the employee mentions the times or the assessment at the first lesson, the candidate moves straight on;
• a wasted question: « Le bonnet, c’est obligatoire ? » (“Is the swim cap compulsory?”), just after the employee has said one is needed;
• a slightly casual register with an employee: « OK », « Bon »;
• two mistakes: « je dois de acheter » → « je dois acheter » (no « de » after « devoir »); « je vais faire sur internet » → « je vais le faire sur internet » (the object pronoun is missing).

Estimate: B1, roughly NCLC 6 if the other two tasks are at the same level (a speaking score of about 7/20).

Dialogue 2 — estimated C1

Candidate’s lines: 189 words

Key words: ce serait un peu juste (that would be a bit tight), le grand bassin (the main pool), un tarif réduit (a reduced rate), tout régler en ligne (to sort everything out online), je récapitule (let me sum up).

Same situation, same points from the prompt, but a real exchange:

Estimate: C1, roughly NCLC 9 if the other two tasks are at the same level (a speaking score of about 15/20). The second dialogue is not better because the candidate talks more (189 words against 96), but because each of the employee’s answers helps them make the request more precise. These estimates are based on the text of the candidate’s lines: in the exam, fluency and pronunciation count too. To convert scores, see our NCLC score chart.

Asking questions in French: four forms to alternate

The same question can be asked in several ways, from casual to formal. Alternating them shows your command of grammar and register at no extra cost:

English builds questions with “do” (“When do the classes start?”). French has no equivalent: keep the statement word order and add « est-ce que », or invert the verb and the subject pronoun (« commencent-ils »). In an indirect question, “whether” or “if” is always « si »: « Je voudrais savoir si le bonnet est obligatoire », not « Je voudrais savoir est-ce que… ». And never combine two forms: « Est-ce que le cours dure-t-il une heure ? » → « Est-ce que le cours dure une heure ? » or « Le cours dure-t-il une heure ? ».

Useful French phrases

Preparing the writing test too? TCF Canada writing task 2 (120–150 words) also asks you to adapt your register to your readers.

Costly mistakes

• Forgetting a point in the prompt. If the prompt lists five points, prepare at least one question for each.
• Firing off questions without listening. A questionnaire read out in one go is not an interaction: react to each answer.
• Bundling questions. « C’est quand, combien, et il faut quoi ? » (When is it, how much, and what do I need?): one piece of information at a time.
• Always the same question form. Alternate intonation, « est-ce que », inversion and indirect questions.
• Switching register halfway. Choose « tu » or « vous » according to the role, and keep it to the end.
• Reciting your preparation. Your prepared leads are a starting point; during the exchange, listen to the other person.
• Badly built questions. « Qu’est-ce que c’est, le prix ? » → « Quel est le prix ? »; « Je voudrais savoir est-ce que… » → « Je voudrais savoir si… »; « Vous pouvez me dire où est-ce que se trouve la piscine ? » → « … où se trouve la piscine ? ».

To practise with our tool, start the 2 minutes of preparation, then record only your own lines: your opening, your questions, your reactions and your ending. Pause briefly after each question, as if the examiner were answering, and react as if you had heard an answer; the tool gives you a guide of about 1 min 45 s for your own lines within the 3 min 30 s of the exchange. The assessment is based on the transcript: pronunciation is not assessed, and the recording is deleted after transcription. The level shown is an estimate; the preview is free and the full report comes with a pack or a pass (see pricing).

Your turn: prepare for 2 minutes, then get your dialogue corrected

Record your answer (or type it): free preview with your estimated NCLC level and your 2 most important corrections. The assessment is based on the transcript: pronunciation is not assessed.

TCF Canada TEF Canada

Task Task 1 · Guided interviewTask 2 · InteractionTask 3 · Point of view

Cours de natation

Vous voulez inscrire votre fils de 8 ans à des cours de natation. Vous vous adressez à l’employé du centre sportif pour obtenir des informations (horaires, niveaux, prix, équipement, inscription). L’examinateur joue le rôle de l’employé.

Another prompt · I have my own prompt

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Your answer, as you would say it (in French)

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Task 2 FAQ