Havo 4 Writing 1

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• havo
• Leerjaar 4

HAVO 4 - ENGLISH

Class 1

At the end of today's lesson you will know:

• the outline of a formal letter
• do's and don'ts for language + style
• most common spelling + grammar mistakes
• a battle plan for tackling a writing task

Explanation writing test

• 9 / 11 november
• formal letter writing
• 60 minutes
  
• on your laptop, make sure your laptop is fully charged
• Use of a dictionary (Dutch-English) allowed
  

Dear Sir/Madam,

Your address

recipient's adress

The date

Introduce yourself + reason of writing

Explanation of the situation

Conclusion

Closing sentence

Your name

signature

1

   2

  3

  4

   5

   6

   7

  8

   9

   10

Formal letter/email outline

1. Your own address without your name, with the country

 

 Distellaan 1

 3142 PB Hoofddorp

 The Netherlands

Formal letter/email outline

2. Date of writing

 

 15 December 2020

 December 15, 2020

 December 15th, 2020

 15th December 2020

All options are correct; the first one is the easiest. Remember to write months with capital letters in English!

What is the correct opening greeting if you DO NOT know who will read your letter?

Formal letter/email outline

3. Salutation

 Dear Mr Jones / Mrs Jones, (if you know who you are writing to)

 Dear Sir/Madam, (if you do not know who you are writing to)

• Use capital letters
  
• Never use a first name.
  
• Do not write ‘Mister/Missus’
  
• Always end with a comma
  

How do you end a formal letter?

1. Greetings,
2. Yours sincerely,
3. Sincerely,
4. Yours faithfully,

How do we start paragraph 1?

1. Hello!
2. I'm ...
3. My name is ...
4. Good day

Which one is correct?

1. I am a fifteen-year-old boy/girl
2. I am a boy/girl and I am fifteen
3. I am a fifteen years old boy/girl
4. I am 14 and a boy/girl

How do you say 'ik zit op de KSH'

1. I sit on the KSH
2. I am on the KSH
3. I am at the KSH
4. I go to the KSH

Which one is correct

1. The reason I write you is...
2. The reason (why) I am writing you is...
3. The reason i am writing you is
4. The reason i write you is...

Formal letter/email outline

6. Final sentence

  I look forward to hearing from you soon.

  I hope to hear from you soon.

Formal letter/email outline

7. Closure

   Yours sincerely, (when you used a name in the salutation) 

   Yours faithfully, (when you used Sir/Madam in the salutation)

Formal letter/email outline

8. Your signature and full name

 

 [signature]

Ben de Waal

Do's

1. Avoid starting your letter with 'I'.
2. Use signal words/linking words
3. Use modal words (would, could etc.)
4. Use paragraphs (and use blank lines to clearly separate them).
5. At the end, check your work!
   

Don'ts

1.  DON'T use abbreviations / contractions (I'll, didn't)
   
2.  DON'T use the first translation you find in a dictionary without checking.
3. DON'T use street language/slang (gonna, kinda, u, ur, w8, like ... you know, etc.) 

Frequent mistakes: spelling

• When you talk about "ik", "i" is wrong, it is always “I”
• Days of the week, months : Monday, Tuesday, August, October
• Verb instead of noun (live v + life n, believe v + belief n)
• Extra letters: dissapear (disappear), interresting (interesting)

Unsure? Look up!

Frequent mistakes: grammar

• word order: In my opinion is it great to live in New York. In my opinion it is great to live in New York
• their (their house)/they're (they are)/there (there is no water)
• we're (we are)/were (we were at school)/where (where is the building)
• than (=vergelijking: bigger than), then (=tijd, daarna first this happened, then this)

What have you learned about formal letter writing today?