Cambridge C1 Advanced (CAE) - How to Write an Email/Letter

so you clicked on this video because you want to find the best possible advice you want to know how to write the perfect email or letter for c1 advanced cae lucky you you've come to the perfect place hello and welcome to teacher phil where i show people like you how to pass the cambridge exam make sure you subscribe to the channel and like the video and also check out the full article you can find the link in the description box below and with all that being said let's get started first of all let's talk about the good things when it comes to writing an email or letter for c1 advanced number one emails and letters are not mandatory if you don't want to write one you can choose a proposal a report or review instead also you always write between 220 to 260 words just like in every other writing task for cae but wait just a moment let's not get ahead of ourselves and before we go into too much detail let's see what an email or a letter actually means in the context of the c1 advanced exam emails and letters for the cae writing exam might be written for many different possible readers these can include the editor of a magazine the director of a company the principal of a school or even just a friend or a family member there's always some kind of narrative or descriptive part also there are some other functions that you might have to carry out in your text for example you could have to apologize for something reassure someone or justify your opinion so why don't we have a look at a typical example task here you can see that with a little bit of searching and analyzing the task we can extract different information for example we can see who our reader is as well as certain points that we need to address in our email or letter before we jump into analyzing a task in detail let me give you the four main areas that you should always keep in mind and focus on when you write a text like this for c1 advanced first of all layout is probably the most important point in an email or letter we should choose a beginning a main part and also an appropriate closing formula whenever we write an email or letter the second thing is that you should address all the different points that are in the task and support your ideas with reasons and examples while carrying out all the different functions that i've mentioned earlier the third thing is effective text organization make sure that you organize your text in paragraphs and that you connect your ideas with appropriate linking expressions and last but not least we always need to make sure that we use the appropriate register that means formal neutral or informal language but before your head starts spinning because of all the information let's have a look at a specific example and let's go through it together step by step if you have ever watched one of my videos on the different writing tasks in the various cambridge exams you know that text analysis is key to success it helps you organize your ideas better and it simply sets you up for writing a successful email or letter so here is our example from earlier again at first sight it just looks like a bunch of information lumped together in a box but with a slightly more systematic approach we can find out everything we need to write an amazing text the first thing we should find out from our task is what the topic is that we have to write about knowing the topic gives you an idea of the right vocabulary and possible expressions that you might be able to include in our example task your friend chris is coming to your town for a week the second question we should always consider when analyzing a task is what exactly we have to include in our text this question helps us find the specific topic points in the task which are the main points that we have to address in our text going back to our example from before chris wants to know where to go what to do and why while he is in your town for a week we have to make sure that in the planning stage of our email or letter we take this information that we get from the first two questions and we can already think about how to organize these ideas in paragraphs the last thing we should look at is something that i've already mentioned a little bit earlier we always need to check who's going to read our text in c1 advanced because it helps us decide what kind of register we should use formal english neutral or informal language we have already found out that the reader of our email is our friend chris as we are writing to a friend we can choose inform language to support that point even further we can also have a look at the language that chris uses in the task here we can see that there are different features of informal language like contractions there's an exclamation mark and there's also a colloquial expression at the end when chris says cheers if you want to know more about the differences between formal neutral and informal language i have created a video that deals specifically with this problem you can find the video somewhere around here but i don't want to waste your time any longer so let's go into the right structure of a good email or letter a good email always follows the same structure we can break up a good text in three main parts there is some kind of opening formula and opening paragraph followed by the main paragraphs in which we address the topic points that we have found in the task analysis and finally we should always finish off our email or letter with a closing paragraph and an appropriate closing statement you can apply this formula to any email or letter writing task in cae and so now is the time to look at these parts in more detail so you know exactly what is expected from you and what you need to do in each individual part let's get started with the opening of a good email or letter we often call this very first greeting the salutation which is then followed by an introduction or short opening paragraph this part has three specific purposes first of all we want to say hello to our friend or whoever is going to read our text second of all we want to state clearly why we are writing and third of all we might also want to reply to what the other person wrote to us in the task here you can see an example that i've written for this specific task at the beginning i choose an informal greeting by simply saying hi chris how are you doing this is a nice way to start an informal email and sets the tone for the rest of the text the rest of my introduction is there to reply to what chris has told us and to tell him that we are excited to see him i try from the beginning to include features of informal language for example you can see that i use contractions informal punctuation for example there is an exclamation mark and i also use some other nice expressions for example how are you doing super excited or showing you around you can see that it's really not that difficult to start your text in a nice way remember we need an appropriate greeting and in our opening paragraph we need to address what our friend or any other reader has written to us in the task next we have our topic paragraphs the topic paragraphs are the main part of our email or letter so they should be the longest paragraphs and contain most of the information it is important that you get to the point as quickly as possible and stay on topic without swaying off and starting to talk about anything different make sure you support your ideas with example reasons or any other language that might help you once again we need to use the correct register in our example informal language and we also want to use a variety of linking expressions to connect our ideas which makes it easier for the reader to follow our thoughts once again let's have a look at a couple of example paragraphs that i have written for this task first of all you can see that i get straight to the point i've decided to break up my text into two main paragraphs where i talk about what we could do during the week as well as at the weekend i try to stay on topic and give different examples of activities or things we could do during the week and at the weekend you can also see that i have included a lot of different linking expressions that make it easier for the reader to understand what we are trying to say last but not least we want to finish our text with a final sentence or short paragraph as well as an appropriate closing formula in this final part we simply try to round off our text but we can also include a call to action if appropriate a call to action means that we try the recipient or reader of our email or letter to do something very specific this could simply be to write back to us or to do something else for example if we write a letter of complaint we could demand specific action in order to resolve the issue so once again have a look at my example ending to the email in our example task you can see here in red how i try to round off the email by telling chris that that's all i have to say and at the end i reassure him that it's going to be a ton of fun i have also included a call to action by telling chris to think about it and to reply whenever he can and then last but not least i finished the email with an appropriate ending talk to you soon fill so once again just like the introduction the ending to your email or letter is really nothing crazy make sure you include appropriate language and that you just fulfill the functions that you need in these specific parts i hope you found this example useful remember that even though we had a look at an example email all the same things that i've mentioned in this video also apply to letters the only difference is that we might have to change the register and with that the vocabulary possibly some grammatical structures as well as typical expressions like the greeting and salutation thank you for watching the video make sure you check out the full article on my website teacherfield.com i also have a free writing cheat sheet prepared for you where you can learn the basics of all the different writing tasks in c1 advanced you can also find out more about the services that i offer like private writing feedback and speaking classes all the links are as always in the description box below and i will see you next time

Channel: Teacher Phill

Views: 6,100

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Id: pE50n2OFUaY

Length: 14min 29sec (869 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 03 2021