Look everybody welcome to our series of lectures on the task one general letter.
There have been several requests that I put together a lecture series that covers the general letter
for the exam.
There are students who are studying the Heils exam too for immigration purposes or they are trying to
get their licensing done and then they need Dial's exam to prove their English level.
Or sometimes people are doing it for a job in their own country where they need some type of proof of
their English level so I put together this series of lectures that are going to teach you how to do
the general letter exactly it were broken down into three different sections in the first section.
One to cover the theory of how you do the general letter and then in the second section 1 and go through
three or four examples that demonstrate the application of the theory and then in the third section
I am going to do two letters life two or three letters life where I'm going to pull up the question
and then write the question live and explain it to you part bipartisan going through it and hopefully
by the time we reach the end you'll be all set for being able to do a great job on the child's general
letter.
Task one.
All right so let's get started.
So you already know the basic requirements but for some people of this is your first time going to go
through a very very quickly.
You have to you're going to get asked a question and you have to respond to a letter request.
You have 20 minutes to write it and you have to write a minimum of 150 words.
Now if you know the Eilerts exam you know they give you both parts at the same time.
Task 1 and task to really for tasks the one you're supposed that you're supposed to spend 20 minutes
in for task two you're supposed to spend 40 minutes.
As you know the task the both the writing tasks for the aisles exam are handwritten.
So sometimes people ask me What if I have bad handwriting.
What are my handwriting doesn't look good.
Whatever you know and the simple answer to that is if you have bad handwriting you need to improve your
handwriting.
Right you need to make your handwriting better.
That's something you have to work on.
That's a difference with the Tofel exam which is an exam that is explained that is done is done all
on the computer.
So it's all typing.
So you have to make sure that your writing is clear if the grader can't make out what you're writing.
They're not going to interpret for you.
So I hope that answers that question for you guys about if I have bad handwriting What do I do.
Write better you practice it.
You can get better at doing it.
Basically you're going to have several different types of completion requests.
Right.
Sometimes I might ask you to gather information explain what you need or want it might be some type
of very personal correspondence with a friend.
They might as you don't suppress your viewpoint or your complaining about something.
So these are the these are the basic type of request that you're going to have.
Now let's look at the different types of communications that you have for the general letter.
There are three basic types of communications right.
You have the formal format.
Right.
This is normally a formal request a formal letter request like it says here for this one here you've
recently read an advertisement about the equipment that she bought a few days ago.
However the information in the advertisement was wrong.
Write a letter to the manufacturer and say what was the advertisement you read what information was
wrong.
What should they mean what should the manufacturer do about the problem.
You see this is a formal letter you're writing a formal complaint letter here.
There's something wrong.
They want you to write a letter improperly complain with the right tone of voice with the right language.
Right.
So you have a formal letter.
You also have what's called a semi formal format.
In all honesty I really like to think of it between this formal and informal semi-formal as a rule is
a little bit in-between.
But when you're talking about semi formal you are talking basically about a letter where you might be
writing to your manager at your company.
So as you know or you might be writing to a friend about a business opportunity.
So it's something that is semi formal in nature but really semi formal is really basically formal with
maybe only a little bit of informal language here and there but it's basically a formal formal setting.
OK.
Now you then you have the informal format the informal format and with the informal format you're dealing
with a letter to a friend.
Right.
They usually are asking you to write a friend like here write a letter to a friend telling him or her
that you're going back to your hometown and you want to give him or her some furniture please say while
you thought about him or her describe different insurance adjust the way for him to get him or her to
get it.
This is the informal format.
I would say from my experience that the majority of the time it is going to be a formal letter formal
semi-formal letter but really is is probably close to balanced but I think that those are that's what
they ask more of than not.
OK.
But we're going to cover everything because really when you sit down to take that exam you can get either
three formats formal informal or in formal semi formal or informal.
In terms of just some general information that you need to know when you're taking the general letter.
Just some general information.
There are always three parts to the letter requests.
Three parts.
Look here look right here.
These are the three parts while you thought about him or her.
That's part one.
Describe the furniture that's part to suggest a way for him or her to get it.
There's part three.
You're always going to have at least three parts that you have to respond to when it comes to the general
letter.
All right.
Yes very important that you do exactly what they ask you to do that you answer exactly the question
they want you to answer.
You can't there's no there's no room for interpretation.
There are not multiple interpretations of what you're suppose or how you're supposed to respond.
Respond exactly to what they are asking you to respond to.
I've seen so many examples of students who are really outside the box of the question.
They go off on a tangent and start talking about something else or doing something else and they go
off and they go off in the wrong direction in terms of workout.
You've got to make sure you're over 150 but understand they're riding a whole lot more doesn't mean
you're going to get a better score.
People there write really good task one essays usually end up around like two usually up around 225
around there.
You know sometimes a little bit more but the minimum is 150.
You can do a great job at 175 depending on if you're doing a lot of compound complex sentences in terms
of your sentence structures.
And there's no need to address.
Now how many parts.
This is what's important because I see so many students that try to write the general letter one big
paragraph.
Big mistake big mistake you're not going to get a great score.
Right.
Big mistake.
So how many parts will look here on the screen right here and you'll see there are five parts.
You have an introduction which is one of the two sentences the point.
Water part one two to three sentences.
Point two or part two two to three sentences point three or part three two to three sentences in a one
sentence conclusion.
Also you'll see there are the time brackets that you need to be able to write each party and so you
can finish on time is very important that you are working under the pressure of a clock when you're
writing that is extremely important if you're not doing that you are doing it incorrectly.
But there are five parts.
I mean means there five paragraphs.
They're short but they're five parts right.
Here's an example.
I just like I talk to you about the before part is part.
Point one point two point three in addition to point one point one point two and point three before
that you have an introduction.
After that you have a conclusion.
Right.
Those are the five parts.
Now one thing that's so important for students to do that I don't think you guys really understand you
need to do an outline before you start writing it is so helpful to have an outline and know what you're
going to talk about.
The ideas are going to discuss before you start writing.
It makes your writing more organized and it allows you to write faster.
Right so your outline is you're basically are generating the ideas you're going to talk about for part
1.
Generating the ideas you're going to talk about for part to generating the ideas you're going to talk
about for part 3.
Here's an example of an outline.
Here's our question.
Write a letter to your friend about your plans to go out with him or her and another friend on a small
picnic.
Include the following in your letter where you plan to go what arrangements you already made.
What help you need from your friend with this picnic.
Here's an outline part 1 where you plan to go.
Yellowstone National Park part 2.
Arrangements are made.
Check the weather.
Call call call for the entry fee.
Reserve the place or the food part number 3.
What help do I need.
Blankest drinks music driving.
I have gone ahead and I've outlined the ideas I want to talk about for each part.
That's very important right.
That is very very important.
The reason why if you are your brain your when you're writing your brain is going through two different
things.
For most of you most of you don't outline and you try to think of ideas and you try to write at the
same time.
That means that you're putting too much effort energy into thinking about what you want to say and not
how you want to say it how you want to see it is what gets you a good score.
But if you're thinking about what you want to say while you're writing you're not focused on how you
want to say it how you want to say it goes towards the vocabulary choice is the synonym language you
choose.
The sentence structures the grammar the spelling the structure right.
So outlining gets the ideas out of your head gets them on paper you know allows for you to focus on
how you want to see it while you're writing.
Here's another example of an outline.
The same thing you see.
Part 1 part 2 and part 3.
It addresses part one part two in part three in the question.
This is an outline.
You should be able to do an outline in one minute practice outlining is something that you practice.
So a review of the structure.
Excuse me we have here.
You know our introduction point one point 2.3 our conclusion right.
That's our basic structure.
So thank you very much.
This is the conclusion of part 1 of the introduction to writing the general letter.
Task number one.
And I look forward to joining you on the not joining you on the next lecture for part 2.
All right.
So I'll talk to you soon.
Take care.