LESSON TITLE: Formal Email Writing Lesson #2

TEACHER NAME: Karen Salerni DATE: April 25, 2014

Attach any handouts or materials required for this lesson.
Preparation/Planning
ESL Course: Intermediate
Core (integrated skills)

Level

Beginning


Intermediate
X

Advanced


Multilevel
Topic/Theme:
Requesting information

Objectives
Listening Listening is not a focus of this lesson, but students will need to
communicate with a partner by speaking and listening to successfully
complete activities.
Speaking Speaking is not a focus of this lesson, but students will need to
communicate with a partner by speaking and listening to successfully
complete activities.
Reading Students will be able to identify to the differences between formal and
informal emails and good and bad emails that request information.
Writing Students will write a letter requesting additional information about an
apartment.
Bridging
What background knowledge
do the students already have?
In class, the students have practiced using transitional phrases
and linking words, which should be used in formal letters and
emails.

Most students have a general familiarity with letter writing
from previous English classes.

Students have likely sent emails in English, so they may have
some personal experience with this topic.

What will you do to activate
or link students prior
knowledge or experience to
upcoming content?
I will begin the class by asking the students for examples of
emails they have sent recently, and I will list these examples on
the board in two columns formal and informal without
explicitly explaining my reasoning for the columns. I will then
ask the students if they are able to determine how I separated
the examples and attempt to elicit formal and informal.

I will then ask the students if they know when to use formal
letters and when to send informal letters. Again, I will ask for
examples and write these on the board. If the students are quiet
or struggling to think of examples, I will allow them to talk to a
partner for a few minutes before continuing with the lesson.

I will explain that todays lesson will focus on writing formal
emails to request information. I will ask the students when they
think they would send these types of emails. For example, when
requesting information about apartments, language courses,
travel destinations, and more.

Engagement with New Material
What will you do to engage
students in the active learning
of the new material?
After explaining the goal of this lesson, I will introduce the first
activity. I will place the students in pairs and make an effort to
place students with partners who do not share the same native
languages.

I will hand each pair an envelope that contains cut-up strips of
paper that form two emails: one formal and one informal. I will
ask the students to group the strips into a formal letter and an
informal letter and then put the strips in the correct order.

After students complete this activity, I will call on volunteers to
read the complete emails to make sure that all students know
the correct order for the emails.

I will then give the pairs a few minutes to discuss how they
were able to differentiate the formal email from the informal
email. The pairs will then share their thoughts with the class.

I will then give students a handout that contains a copy of the
formal email as an example of a good email and a copy of a bad
email. Both emails accomplish the same goal: requesting
information about English language courses.

The students will continue to work in pairs and compare the
two emails. Working together, the students will create a dos and
donts chart that shows the rules for writing an appropriate
formal email.

I will create a master chart on the board that students will help
me complete using their own work. I will fill in and explain any
information not provided by the students.

Dos: Use an informative subject line; write the most
important information first; use transitional phrases to
make the message clear; use simple grammar; use
paragraphs to ensure that the email is clear and easy to
understand

Donts: Use an unclear subject line; include unnecessary
or personal information; give personal information; use
exclamation marks; use abbreviations; use slang; use
emoticons

What will you do to ensure
that all students are engaged?
I will circulate around the room as the students sort and
organize the informal and formal email strips. I will also walk
around when the students create their lists of dos and donts for
formal emails. If there is confusion during these activities, I can
offer clarification to individual groups or the class as a whole.
Additionally, the pairwork component of these activities was
developed to help promote student engagement.
Application
What opportunities will you
provide students to practice
and apply their
knowledge/skill to meet the
objectives for this lesson? To
apply to other contexts?
I will then introduce a writing task that allows students to write
an email requesting more information about an available
apartment. I will hand out a worksheet that shows an apartment
listing.

Students will have a few minutes to read the handout. I will
then ask them to imagine that they are interested in this
apartment, but still have some questions. I will ask the students
to give examples of questions that are not answered by the
apartment listing, and write these questions on the board.

Examples: What is the apartments address? Is laundry
available on-site? Is there air conditioning and/or heat in
the apartment? Are pets allowed? What is located in the
neighborhood (stores, restaurants, etc.)? How close is the
beach? Can I schedule an appointment to view the
apartment?

I will then instruct students to use the good email handout as a
guide and write a letter to Jose Morega requesting more
information about the apartment.

When the students have finished writing, I will ask them to
swap the drafts of their emails with a partner and peer edit.
While theyre editing, I will tell the students to make sure that
the letters follow the dos and donts list created earlier in the
class. They should also look at the transitional phrases to make
sure that they are being used correctly. The students will return
the letters to their authors before the ends of class.

The students will then re-write their letters using the feedback
from their peers. Depending on time, this will likely be a
homework assignment.

Assessment
How will you assess their
learning of the objectives?
I will walk around the classroom as the students write and edit
their emails and offer feedback and provide help when I see any
serious mistakes. I will also collect and grade the final drafts of
their letters about the apartment.
Closing
How will you help students
recap the learning and link it
back to the original purpose of
the lesson?
Before the end of class, I will review the appropriate contexts
for sending formal and informal emails. I will also ask students
to recall the lists of dos and donts when writing formal emails.
I will remind students that today we focused on formal emails
sent for the purpose of requesting more information and tell
them that we will continue to discuss letters in the future. The
students will also learn how to write letters of complaint and
job application emails. Lastly, I will remind the students to
write a final draft of their letters requesting information about
the apartment.
Technology
If applicable for your context
and your lesson, how will you
meaningfully integrate
technology into your lesson?

At my school, technology is not easily accessible because the
classrooms are not provided with screens, projectors, or
computers. Although we have access to projectors and
computers, it is often easier to just use the materials in the
classroom. For this lesson plan, I plan on relying on the
whiteboard, markers, and handouts. To modify this lesson or
in a future lesson I could take the students to the schools
computer lab and have them search for apartment listings,
language schools, tourism bureaus, etc., before drafting emails
that request information.