How to write a business letter
Intermediated- level students level
Description
Materials
Main Aims
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By the end of this lesson, the students should be able to write a business letter in the context of sending a complain.
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By the end of this lesson, the students should learn the difference between the formal and informal writing in the context of using the right vocabulary and suitable structure also.
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Make writing letter authentic experience.
Subsidiary Aims
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Encourage them to speak up and give chance to speak in public.
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Enhance their communication skills and working in groups effectively.
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Incorporate all learning styles in the session.
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Using the four language components in the lesson.
Procedure (40-61 minutes)
Asking them what do you know about a business letter, did you hear about it before? If some said yes, let's continue the discussion Why do we send a business letter? let them say all the answers that they know already or just guessing too, as a kind of eliciting in an open discussion.
After brainstorming about the reasons why we write a business letter and writing the right purpose of it on the board eliciting some from students and adding the rest from teacher explanation to make it clear and leave it on the side of the board the full lesson. Let's set a situation where we need to send a formal letter to a company to complain about a product or service that did not meet our expectations.
Ask them about the formal structure to elicit some main points then add more related to (greetings, structure, vocabulary, and layout). Then, show them two kinds of letters (formal and informal) let them figure out the difference by working in pairs. Then discuss the answers with them by showing both on the smartboard and highlighting the essential points in the formal letters. Discuss today's context for writing a complaint formal letter and how to set the main points we need to focus on in this letter by showing them examples of different formal letters.
-After giving them the needed vocab to use in the formal context like greeting, endings, the correct layout, and drawing their attention to the right structure and grammar usage. -Divide them into groups of 3-4 students, hand out some different informal letters and ask them to know what should we change here to make it more formal. -At the time, the teacher should move around the class to monitor and record the errors and who participates more or less to encourage them to have a positive part in the teams. -In the middle of this stage, I should ask every team to come out to say the answers in front of the class. -Ask the shy ones to participate even with one word to enhance their social skills. -Last, ask them to write in pairs the correct one as a formal business letter. Then, discuss the difference between the two.
-Discuss their personal authentic experience with being unsatisfied about a service or product and wanting to complain about it and what questions and points that they wanted to clarify in it -Then, let them be free to write their own complaint on their own on whatever product or service they choose. *At the same time, I will put on the smartboard the correct layout to help them to use it while writing the letter.
Ask the students to trade their letters with their friends and let's read them aloud. Use the peer- evaluation activity, asking them to evaluate the usage of language, structure, and layout. After that, the teacher will give feedback after hearing and recording all their comments on their colleagues' work.