Speaking Tâche 1 is the first impression of the whole speaking exam: the examiner asks you to introduce yourself, 2 minutes, no preparation. If you run short, the examiner keeps asking questions.
The most reliable way to prepare is to write your own self-introduction in advance, practise it until you can fill 2 minutes without notes, and get ready for the follow-up questions. HiTCF's Tâche 1 is built around exactly those three steps.
How the task works
- The examiner opens with: « Voici la première tâche. Cette partie de l'épreuve dure 2 minutes. Est-ce que vous pouvez vous présenter ? »
- You talk about who you are: family, studies, work, hobbies, your plans in Canada.
- If you don't fill the time, the examiner asks follow-up questions about what you said.
To see what it looks like first, open the exam walkthrough page: the Walkthrough tab has the examiner's lines; the “Tâche 1 · Self-intro” tab has 13 official themes × talking points and three sample dialogues you can play in full, with read-aloud, write-from-memory and sentence breakdown on every line.
Step 1: generate your own script
Open Tests, switch to Speaking and pick “Tâche 1 · Guided interview”.
If you don't have a script yet, click “Write my 2-minute self-introduction”:
- Write a paragraph about your situation in any language: where you live, your job or studies, your family, why you're going to Canada, what you plan to do there.
- The first time, you're asked how French should refer to you (feminine or masculine forms). You choose once and it's used from then on.
- Click “Write my French script”. After about a minute you have a 2-minute French self-introduction written for speaking.
Already have a French script, corrected by a teacher or written yourself? Click “Already have a French script? Paste it in”, then “Use this script”. It is saved word for word.
Once it's generated, the Tâche 1 page shows “My 2-minute script”: the whole text, with every word clickable for its word card and liaisons marked in the text (click “?” for what the marks mean). Below it are two buttons: “Shadow”, which opens the practice page, and “Mock exam”.
Step 2: learn it from the script — “Sample”
The practice page has two tabs: Practice and Sample. Everything you do while reading the script is in Sample.
For each line you can:
- play the reference audio, or “Play from this sentence”;
- “Start shadowing”: listen, slow it down and record, with a pronunciation score;
- “Write this line from memory”;
- open grammar and liaison tips;
- “Rewrite this line”, “Add a line” or delete it, to fit the script to your situation.
And for the whole text:
- “Whole script” recitation: write the whole script from an outline. Every attempt is saved, and lines you missed can be drilled on their own.
- “Shadow the whole passage” in the right panel: read it from start to finish and get this attempt's score and your average.
- “Copy all”: copy the whole French text.
Below the script you can also open “Grammar front-loading” to see where the grammar points in your script fall.
Step 3: speak without the script — “Practice”
Once you know it, go back to the Practice tab. There are three modes:
Full answer
Click “Say it all the way through” and say your 2-minute self-introduction from start to finish without the script. It is scored to exam standards.
- A timer and progress bar turn green after 1:30; below 1:30 you're reminded that the examiner would probe you.
- Recording stops at 2:00, or click “Done”.
- Results arrive in about 10 seconds in the right-hand results panel, and you can “Say it again”.
These practice results are kept separately and don't count towards your mock exam history.
Sentence by sentence
Say your self-introduction one sentence at a time: click “Say a sentence” and see that sentence's correction right away. You can “Say it again”, open the sentence breakdown, or “Read & score” the corrected sentence. Your sentences join up into a passage, and a counter shows how many sentences and roughly how long you've said, so you build up to 2 minutes.
If you can't speak out loud, click “Type instead”.
Follow-ups
After your introduction, the examiner may well ask a few more questions. This mode has three parts:
- Common follow-ups: frequent questions any candidate may face, across 7 themes, each with an examiner recording.
- Detail-dig: click “Generate detail-dig questions” to get questions built from your own script — practice against just reciting.
- Custom Q&A: add topics you're worried about being asked.
For each question you can listen to the examiner, then “Generate reference answer” or “Write it myself”, and record yourself reading the answer for a score. When they're all ready, “Practise straight through” lets you run through the questions, listen to the answers, or write the answers from memory in one go.
Step 4: the mock exam
Click “Mock exam” on the Tâche 1 page or the practice page: a full 2-minute recording with no pause and no prompts. It stops at 2:00, or you can “Stop early”.
The results page shows:
- your estimated level, with an approximate TCF Canada speaking score out of 20 and an NCLC;
- what to “Work on next” and an overall comment;
- Range, Accuracy, Fluency and Coherence;
- a list of corrections;
- duration, pauses, speaking rate, a pronunciation score (for reference only), and the tenses you used;
- your recording to play back;
- “What you said vs what you memorized”: where your actual words differed from your script;
- once you've taken it more than once, a “Progress trend”.
The full mock exam
To sit Tâche 1, 2 and 3 back to back, go to Mock Exams in Tests and click Random Mock Exam. The speaking part is the full 12-minute exam sequence. Its Tâche 1 is a question-and-answer interview with the AI examiner: one simple question at a time, about who you are, your studies, work, hobbies, family, daily life and your plans in Canada — closer to the follow-up rhythm of the real thing than recording your introduction on its own.
Free vs membership
- Free: once logged in, the Tâche 1 page; the 13 official themes and three sample dialogues on the walkthrough page.
- Membership: generating or pasting a script, shadowing scores, reference audio, sentence breakdowns, Full answer and Sentence by sentence, Follow-ups, the mock exam and the full mock exam.
- During a free trial: most of the above (Sentence by sentence has a daily limit); the full mock exam needs a paid membership.
A suggested routine
- Look through the 13 official themes on the exam walkthrough page and listen to one sample dialogue.
- Generate your script and adjust a few lines to fit your situation.
- Shadow and write each line from memory in Sample until you can write the whole script.
- Use Full answer to speak without notes, and Sentence by sentence to fix the sentences where you get stuck.
- Work through the common follow-ups and the detail-dig questions.
- Before the exam, record the mock exam a few times and check “What you said vs what you memorized” and your progress trend.
Open Tâche 1 and start by generating your script.
The other two tasks: Speaking Tâche 2 guide · Speaking Tâche 3 guide.