Collège Henri Cartan – Cours de vacances – Mr OKPALE

Class: Tle

UNIT 1: LIFESTYLE - MOVING WITH THE TIMES

Lesson 4: Challenges in life

Skill: Writing a Letter of Complaint

Lead in activity

How will you feel if the following situations always happen in your living area?
- Frequent power cuts so that people go for weeks without electricity,
- The water in tap comes white or reddish with sand.

Learning context: During an English club session, the students in TleA... of … are learning
how to identify the different parts of a Letter of Complaint. You
decide to fully participate in order to produce one by yourself
efficiently.
Announce of the lesson: Today, we are going to learn how to identify the different parts of a
letter of complaint. So, follow carefully.
1- Definition: A Letter of Complaint permits you to communicate your dissatisfaction about
a particular situation and raise issues to authorities or a company.
2- The layout: A good Letter of Complaint should have:
- The introduction where you mention the complaint (the problem) and give brief details.
- The main body where you describe the consequences of the problem.
- The conclusion where you make suggestions and express your hope.
3- Writing Strategy: An effective letter of complaint should be:
- concise and easy to understand;
- factual (accurate) with only relevant details;
- polite so the reader will respond positively.
Remark: Don’t use contracted forms, abbreviations, informal expressions and colloquial
(idiomatic) language.

Solution of Activity 1
1- Frequent power cuts; Paragraph 1.
2- The Manager of the National Electricity Board.
3- She gives consequences.
4- Suggestions and hopes. (I hope the supply…)
Collège Henri Cartan – Cours de vacances – Mr OKPALE

Activity 1: Consider the sample letter on page 16 and answer to the following questions.
(Adapted from Far Ahead Tle / p.16 / exo.2)
1- Why is Binta complaining? Which paragraph contains this information?
2- Who is Binta complaining to?
3- What is the writer doing in paragraph 2?
4- Which information is given in paragraph three? Give expressions that justify your answer.

Activity 2: Read the paragraphs below. Which of them correspond to introduction, main body
or conclusion? How do you know?
A- Secondly, the girls who are forced into marriage often have to drop out of school and cannot
finish their education. This means that they are denied the right to choose their own future
and therefore to fully develop as independent human beings.
B- These are the reasons why I think that it is both important and urgent to ban forced marriages.
I do hope that UNICEF will be able to do more to ensure the rights of the girls, and will help
our community to put pressure on the government to make and enforce laws banning forced
child marriages. We are counting on your support.
C- I am writing to express my worries about the girls’ situation in my village. Many girls are
forced by their parents to marry very young, and I believe that this practice is not acceptable.
It is clear that these young girls’ basic rights are being violated, and that forced marriages
are harmful both to the girls and to society as a whole.
D- First of all, forced marriages are dangerous for the girls’ health and represent a violation of
their right to physical integrity. The girls are often forced to marry when they are still very
young, sometimes even before they are 15, and they are expected to have children rapidly.
But having children so young is dangerous, and they face serious complications during
pregnancy or childbirth. What’s more, the girls are more exposed to domestic violence as
they depend entirely on their husbands.

HOMEWORK: After studying the specificities of the letter of complaint with your teacher,
imagine you face one of the situations below:

1- There are frequent power cuts in your neighborhood and people go for weeks without
electricity.
2- The sewage system in your area has deteriorated and dirty water accumulates in low areas.
This is smelly and unhealthy.
3- The tap water in your building comes out reddish and muddy. You fear it might transmit
typhoid fever.
Choose one of the topics, follow the sample letter on page 16 then, write down a complaint
letter. (Far Ahead Tle / p.16 / exo.1)