Hatice Granados Fuquene Hatice Granados Fuquene

Writing-A thank you letter
Elementary level

Description

In this lesson, students will practice how to write a thank you letter for a gift. The lesson starts with a realia and teacher tells students that she received a gift from her best friend before she went on holiday. It was something to take with her. Teacher shows the box of gift but does not tell students what it is. Instead, she makes students guess through a thank you letter she wrote to her friend for the gift. the students work in pairs to guess the gift with the help of the letter shown to them. Then, the students are asked to write gifts to their friends and write a letter according to the gift they received. The teacher models and gives instructions clearly. The students are able to practice their writing and functional language use for the lesson.

Materials

Abc Realia-a box of gift
Abc Cut-ups

Main Aims

  • To provide product writing practice in the context of writing a thank you letter for a gift

Subsidiary Aims

  • To provide practice of language used for writing a letter in the context of thanking a friend for sending a gift

Procedure

Warmer/Lead-in (5-6 minutes) • To activate students' existing knowledge of the topic - To generate interest in the topic of the lesson

Ask students when was the last time they sent a gift to someone or received a gift from somebody. Show a box of gift as a realia and tell them that you received that gift from your best friend a month ago before you went on holiday. Explain them that your bestie sent you that gift for you to take with you when you went on holiday. Engage students to the context smoothly and put them into pairs for them to think about the gift.

Preparing to write (6-8 minutes) • To provide ideas to write about - To provide an opportunity to prepare for the task - To provide an opportunity to organize their ideas logically and take notes - To provide learners with a model of task

Tell students that you will help them guess and project your own thank you letter on to the board. Explain them that you wrote a letter to your bestie for the gift and thanked her. Hand out the sample to the students as well. Tell them that they will read very quickly and see a question below. Tell them that they will read the letter quickly to find the answer to the question. They will read individually and will be put into pairs to answer the question. Ask students what they have thought the gift would be. It will not be challenging for them to find what the gift is. The idea here is to model the task they will have. After you get the answer from the students ask them how they were able to find out.

Useful Language (10-11 minutes) • To provide and clarify language which learners may find useful for completing the writing task

After you ask the students how they were able find out what the gift was, put them into pairs for them to discuss shortly about how to write a thank you letter. They first discuss with their pairs to get their own ideas about writing a letter. After that ask them what else they can write for the colorful parts while writing a letter. Engage them to the topic. Draw colorful arrows to write down alternative sentences or phrases. This should not be taking too long and watch out with TTT for this stage. Try to create opportunities for students to come up with ideas and explanations. Have students write down a gift that they can send to a friend to take with him/her when he/she goes on holiday. Be clear with your instructions here!! Simple and clear. Divide them into two groups and pass pink and yellow colored cut-ups to each group. After they write down a gift on the piece of paper, collect them. Make sure you have two groups, one is pink and the other one is yellow.

Productive Task (10-12 minutes) • For learners to practice their written fluency in relation to what they have learned

Give yellow colored cut-ups to the pink group, and pink colored cut-ups to the yellow group. Have them open their gifts but not tell each other what they have received. Give them the handout to write their own thank you letter for the gift they have just received. Make sure the students understand how they will be writing. Remind them that they won't name the gift in their letter, they will just use some clues to be guessed. Give them five minutes to write down and after they are done with their writing, put them into pairs to check their letters in their own groups.(Remember there is two different group!) Have students stand up and go show their letter to the other group to find out who has sent the gift. In case they might cause chaos while trying to find the person, help them if necessary.

Feedback (6-8 minutes) • To allow learners to compare results of the task - To provide content feedback on results of the task - To provide language feedback based on the task

After the students find the person they have been looking for, ask a few of them what their gift was and how they found the person. Praise students for doing a good job in their task.

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