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Hello IELTS students.
Thanks for choosing to listen to this tutorial from ieltspodcast .com.
My name's Daphne and in this tutorial I'm going to be talking about letter writing which is the task one writing question for the general training IELTS paper.
I am really enjoying marking so many of your amazing letters.
They are intelligent, clever, accurate, creative and sometimes so funny that I'm laughing while I'm correcting them.
Thank you all for those ones.
However, I feel that letter writing is sometimes an area which is a bit neglected.
That means not focused on enough.
And in this two -part tutorial, I'm going to look at the main types of letters which come up in the IELTS exam, help you to think about the context of the letter that's the situation the content so what to write and the register the level of formality needed for IELTS letters and share with you some key functional language which you will need so the aim of the tutorial here is to help you understand what the question is and the setting or context for the letter to think about what you have to write about and how to use the prompts that you're given in the question rubric.
To work out how creative to be.
Is it okay to make up lots of strange facts and information?
The answer is yes, by the way.
Understand how to start and how to finish your letters.
This is really important.
On an IELTS level, you can't make a mistake on this one.
And finally, how to get your letter in a logical order, which will help your coherence and extra use great grammar but make it sound natural.
Now I'm going to talk about a couple of questions which will be on the bottom of this the website page that links to this podcast and I'll put a few extra ones up there as a bonus that you can practice with.
So let's start with an overview of general training task one for those of you who are not familiar with it maybe if you haven't done your IELTS before.
So you'll be asked to write a letter This could be to request information, give personal or factual information, explain a problem or situation, explain wants or needs or make a request, complain about something, make a suggestion or recommend something.
It's quite a wide range.
All these letters require what we call functional language, which is specifically the kind of language needed to perform certain tasks.
So, for example, I'm writing to complain about, I'm writing with reference to, I would be grateful if you could answer a few questions for me.
It is very important that you build up a list of phrases like these, really useful, and learn them before your exam.
So, each essay or letter will require different phrases and I'm going to highlight these as we go along.
And just to let you know, on the website, you can find a really, really great list of all these important phrases.
So, I would suggest have a look all over the website and find those general training task one letters.
So, let's look at the instructions.
The instructions will say you should spend about 20 minutes on this task, write at least 150 words.
You do not need to write any addresses and sometimes it may say begin your letter dear sir or madam, but this is not always the case.
So marking. Marking is marked on, the letter is marked on task achievement.
Does your letter answer all parts of the question?
Are your ideas relevant?
Coherence and cohesion.
Are your ideas well organised, clear and connected?
Lexical resource. Have you avoided repeating the same words and copying words from the question?
This is important. This means paraphrasing.
We talk talk about this a lot in task one and task two questions, using synonyms, using different words, grammatical range and accuracy.
So have you made any grammatical mistakes and can you show a good range of grammatical structures?
Incidentally the most common mistakes I find in letters are the use of tenses and prepositions, so I'll draw your attention to that as we go along.
So here is the the first letter I want to look at.
The instructions are, you have eaten at a restaurant and it was such a terrible experience that you decided to inform the manager by letter of what happened and that you want your money back.
And then these are the little prompts, the kind of helping bits you have. One, describe the problem.
Two, explain why you're unhappy.
Three, say what you'd like to happen next.
And what really helps you in all these letters is that you're given them these prompts, this help and guidance, that helps you organise it really and as you go along make sure you address all those three issues.
So what kind of letter is this?
Yep, it's a letter of complaint and in my opinion you can have a bit of fun with these letters at the same time responding to each part of the question.
Let's get quickly organised and do some planning.
First thing, describe the problem they say.
So we need to sort out some sort of facts and the the context that that's the situation.
Think about this by doing some quick WH questions.
When was it? Where were you?
What went wrong? So scribble down a few notes and this is a little extract from a letter I want to share with you.
So one of our students writes, Dear Sir and Madam, I'm writing to make a complaint about the extremely unpleasant experience I had in your restaurant last week.
I visited it on the 10th of December for dinner together with two friends of mine to celebrate my birthday.
Okay, this is a very strong start.
Concise, sets the scene, provides all the key background information needed.
So, it tells me when it was, tells me they were there for dinner with two friends, tells me about the birthday.
So, the functional language, I want, I'm writing to make a complaint about, good preposition.
Great grammar, we've got the relative clause which i had in your restaurant and extra information birthday two friends we don't need this but it adds to the whole context it's setting the scene for me and now we need to find out what the problem is and why they're complaining so it says why are you unhappy what are you complaining about we ordered as usual spaghetti with clams as the first dish and grilled tuna as the second.
Wow. When the dishes arrived, they were cold and too salty.
And when I informed the waiter about this, he reacted rudely, complaining that I was wrong.
Although eventually the dishes were replaced, we had to wait for them for more than one hour, which I found totally unacceptable.
As a result, my birthday, being one of the most important days of the the year turned out to be the most one of the most unpleasant dinners I have experienced in your restaurant so far this is very good so the student has explained what went wrong why she's complaining and what she's upset about and the language throughout this is very good and would score highly in an exam obviously but I really like the kind of extra touches so she says as as usual.
So, we ordered, as usual, spaghetti with clams. So, she's a regular.
That's her local restaurant.
The most unpleasant dinners.
So, I should say, sorry, one of the most unpleasant dinners I've experienced so far.
She may go back there, but it's telling us she's obviously been there before.
Now, in terms of grammar, there's lots of confident touches.
So, she's using the past tense this is the most logical one um but also a modal verb had to wait participle clause my birthday being one of the most and of course the superlative the most important uh days and the most unpleasant dinners so although it reads very naturally there's also a lot of skill in there as well in terms of the grammar and the kind of flexibility of using that grammar it's so good stuff so the last part of the letter is say what you want to happen next so here we go i therefore request i be given a full refund and suggest you kindly investigate and take action against the staff
on duty in both the kitchen and front of house so this is very clear and simple again answers the task prompt and gives two clear reasons and the action that they want to to be taken.
First, a refund and secondly, some action or training of the staff.
But what is good here and what I want to really highlight is the register, like the tone of the letter.
It's very polite but it's not rude.
So saying, I therefore request that I be given a full refund is not the same as, give me the money.
She's got it absolutely right.
It's a formal letter and therefore the the style and the vocabulary is formal and never informal.
And the complaint is done very politely without being rude and threatening.
So we would not be rude and threatening when we write in English.
We're generally quite polite.
Okay, so that gives you one example.
Let's look at another example.
Same letter, so letter of complaint, same restaurant problem.
And I just want to check the greetings.
So we're going to start with the greetings.
That's the beginning of the end of the letter, formal letter as we said.
So, Dear Sir or Madam just starts, I'm writing to inform you that I had an unpleasant experience at your restaurant last Sunday.
And the ending for this one is I will be expecting to hear from you shortly.
Yours sincerely, Carlos Brown.
Okay. So, Yours sincerely is actually not the correct ending when you're using Dear Sir, okay?
Yours sincerely should be should be yours faithfully so you use your sincerely when it's somebody that you know so if i'm saying dear mr smith i'm gonna write your sincerely if i'm writing dear sir or madam i have to write yours faithfully make a note of that one if you are not a hundred percent sure on that but what i do quite like here is i will be expecting to hear from you shortly I will be expecting to hear this is very firm using the future future voice here and obviously wants action to be taken expect action to be taken so let's um look at another few things in this letter I had heard
about your gourmet menu and excellent service through different advertisers in TV and social media taking all these into consideration I decided to bring my fiance to your restaurant to spend a relaxing afternoon okay there's a few little corrections I always say different advertisements or adverts not advertising zing's I will actually say take my fiance to your restaurant not bring this is a difficult one but this has to do with where you're starting from but otherwise I think it works really nicely in building up a context same as the one before where it was the birthday and the two friends
this is saying hey i chose your restaurant because i really like the advertisements or the the yeah the adverts um i'm bringing my fiance and we want to spend a nice long relaxing time with you so it's showing off some really nice kind of grammar and a really natural way of writing so here's the complaint ain't.
Now listen out here because the register for me is not formal enough.
So when we arrived the host had lost our booking and said that we would have to wait for an available table 30 minutes.
It is good that I made the reservation online which I showed to the host but he didn't care.
When we were finally at our table the waiter was very kind with positive vibes which really really helped and gave us hope.
However, the meal was nothing like as we expected.
There was a hair in my fiance's salad and my meat was overcooked.
I spent $50 for a very bad experience.
Okay. So, as I read that, you're probably thinking, oh, I wouldn't say that.
So, we want to take a look at how we can be more formal in this.
So, he says, it is good that I made the reservation online.
So, you could say, I was relieved to have made the reservation online.
Or, kind of maybe simpler, having made the reservation online, I showed it to the host, okay?
And instead of he didn't care, which is definitely too informal, maybe I'd say it made no difference.
And then, he says the waiter was very kind.
Now, kind is okay, but if you're going to use kind which is not a very high level word maybe you put two adjectives in there put kind and friendly something like that which makes it a bit less uh kind of low level um but this positive vibes which really helped and gave us hope is is not really going to work here um so that needs to go basically uh the meal was nothing like as we expected uh you could say the meal was not up to standard. And later when he says, $50 on a very bad experience.
Again, I think we don't want to repeat experience because we've had that a few times.
I spent $50 for nothing or I felt the evening was not worth $50.
Something like that.
So, keep on thinking about who you're writing to and this will keep you on track with the register to the formality of your letter.
So the second example of a kind of letter I want to look at today is a situation letter.
This letter also comes from the online course we do.
So the online course is amazing if you want to work on your writing particularly.
We do a lot of work on the writing task two and obviously the task one is both general and academic as well.
This situation letter then, your next door neighbour owns a small dog that barks throughout the day and night.
Write a letter to your neighbour requesting that something be done about the dog.
Include in your letter your reason for writing, what you would like to happen, and a nice respectful style.
Those are your three prompts, your three kind of clues as to what you should write, and also what order you should write it in, so it helps you on the cohesion.
and this is my favourite letter and you will see, I'm going to read you some examples that some students have a lot of fun with this.
It's a perfect example of getting the tone and the register right.
So, we want to look at neutral informal, neutral informal.
So, we're not going to be super polite.
Why? Because it's your neighbour.
You know him or you know of him.
you don't want to be formal and you don't want to be completely informal either because it's not like you're writing to a friend so let's look at this dear mr smith or dear john is okay your neighbor so you may well know their name and you want to end with regards or kind regards so not your sincerely because that would be too formal and not love from as that is too informal formal.
So your reason for writing.
I'm writing to complain about the noise coming from your apartment nearly all day long.
I believe it's produced by your poodle who marks any disturbance with loud and continuous barking.
Okay that's great isn't it?
I'm writing to complain about good functional language that's the fixed expressions that we want.
Coming from your apartment nearly all day long.
I believe it's produced by your poodle and you know it's from the poodle but you're just being quite polite about it.
So, that's the first reason for writing.
The problem, the reason I find the current situation unacceptable is because it deprives my little son of having a long healthy sleep, especially at nighttime.
He's two years old and it's crucial for his cognitive development to have a good rest, okay.
So, now, we've got the background, the context.
I don't like the noise because my poor boy can't sleep.
and he's only two and he needs to sleep i mean the the cognitive development is quite academic in terms of writing so maybe a little bit too formal um but you get the idea about giving the background and being polite so explaining the problem but nicely now this solution so this is the third part what should they do is lovely having owned a pet in the past i know one may feel powerless when it misbehaves.
In fact, my dog used to cause similar troubles to my neighbours until I realised it could be trained to behave differently.
For your convenience I have enclosed with this letter a few pamphlets about applied behaviour therapy courses for dogs.
Please take a moment to look at them and consider enrolling your dog on one of them.
I do think it's quite funny.
It's clever, the tone is very polite and friendly, but also quite subtle.
It's really saying, do something about this now.
And I'm going to tell you how and you need to take your dog to be retrained.
Not only take your dog to be retrained, but here you go, here's a leaflet, here's some information, so you really must do something now.
So, I love the… there's some good grammar here.
There's some nice little phrases like in fact and I've enclosed obviously.
So, that's like the more functional language.
Please take a moment to look at them, very polite as well.
And also, we've got nice grammar – used to cause similar troubles.
So, used to is a nice way of talking about things things that you did in the past but you don't do any more i've enclosed so present perfect there and please take a moment so you're using a command structure which we don't use very much also the dog could be trained so a nice passive with a modal verb some some really good stuff there uh there's another one here so this is letters a little bit more chatty a bit more friendly it says i hope this letter finds you well which is quite nice because it's a neighbor I'm sorry but I'm writing to you in relation to the puppy dog which you bought a few
weeks ago so I'm sorry I'm writing to you is probably better than I'm writing to complain about which is a bit formal so I'm sorry but I'm writing to you in relation to I saw the puppy with you in the park last weekend and it was truly cute however to be honest with you I'm doing my dissertation at the moment and I cannot fully focus during the day due to his noisy marks the noisy barks sorry so great start functional language i hope this letter finds you well i'm writing to you in relation and but i really like this to be honest with you so the tone of this is really friendly and then you're
being really nice about the dog it's cute and then you're kind of complaining but it barks so that's quite clever uh it talks carries on this letter talking about insomnia again can't sleep and then it says here therefore I thought I would suggest that some measures could be taken again nice modal verb with a passive to address the issue and could benefit both of us I'd be grateful if good functional language you could find a way to train the puppy to stop yapping good word instead of barking in the house as you may may know our neighbor jane is an expert in dealing with such problems and she
works in a pet shop that's lucky so asking her advice might be very helpful and useful so it's great it's a very friendly letter super polite but actually saying please do something about this but i love the context um yes you've got a new dog it's really cute i saw you in the park talks about the neighbor the neighbor works in the pet shop and this is all in 180 words so I know it sounds long but actually this is pretty concise it's a very very good lovely paragraph and a really nice ending they end if I can be a further assistant please put assistance please do not hesitate to ask very useful
if I can be or further assistance please do not hesitate to ask very very useful for a a lot of letters that so the register is great neutral informal but still really friendly natural and sophisticated really clever so before we finish i'm just going to read you one more this is a really kind one uh so this says i hope this letter finds you well i've noticed that you've just got a chihuahua puppy small dog which i believe is a good source of companionship as you've lived alone for a few years however pets can feel very anxious in a new environment again context somebody who's living on their
own you've got the small dog we've got yes of course the dog's lovely but there's a problem and then it goes on you've been a neighbor to me for many years and i hope we can resolve this issue immediately so i love this tone i hope we can resolve this issue immediately.
I do not own a pet and cannot advise you what should be done but I guess taking the dog to a veterinarian, a vet, might be a good idea.
So really, really lovely.
It's kind, it's friendly, it takes on board the idea you're writing to a neighbour, you don't want to upset the friendship but also in terms of language because obviously this is a language exam.
I hope we can resolve this issue.
I do not own a pet.
I cannot advise you what should be done.
Modal verbs. I guess taking the dog to a vet might be a good idea.
Another modal verb.
Really, really good stuff.
So, I hope you found this useful.
We have looked at two types of Task 1 general letters, complaint and situation.
And I've tried to show you some useful expressions expressions and some ideas about context content and register so if you're struggling with your IELTS preparation and want to get some super professional friendly help don't forget sign up for our podcasts and emails at IELTSpodcast .com and the website as well is full of tutorials and guidance get involved in the course essay feedback modules that you can really see how we put these these difficult essays together and that might really, really help you.
And if you have a friend who's working towards the aisles as well, then share this podcast with them.
The next podcast in this, the part two, I'm going to look at some more letters for you, so look out for that one.
But good luck to all of you with your preparation and talk to you soon.
Thank you. Thanks for listening to ieltspodcast .com.
