IELTS Live - Task 1 Writing (GENERAL) - Band 9 Informal Friendly Letter

hi students and welcome to today's live ielts class my name is adrian and i'm streaming to you from beautiful victoria here on the west coast of canada i hope everybody is having a great week so far i hope you're all looking forward to a fantastic weekend welcome kyber hi janil hi carolina krishala good to have everyone here thank you carolina for moderating our chat in this class everyone we are looking at ielts task one writing uh specifically we're looking at writing for the general ielts this time tomorrow we'll look at the academic ielts academic general out task one quite different but lots of people interested in an e in one or the other so we're teaching both now on these channels uh and specifically today we are focusing on a band 9 informal friendly kind of letter so in the general ielts task 1 it's either friendly or academic formal in nature this time we're focusing on the informal friendly type of letter writing that carries that tone and that kind of diction while we wait for a few more students this lesson is presented to you by aehelp.com for academic ielts success visit us there uh for the general ielts check us out at g-i-e-l-t-s help dot com that's general ielts help dot com on both of those sites we have lots and lots of information to help you improve for your next ielts exam our uh academic outlets website looks like this with the blue background we're an official british council aisles test registration center and certified agents you can click this big red button to join our premium ielts package with computer-based practice exams paper-based pdf exams hd high quality lesson videos strategies tips there's lots there for you when you join you get access to your my student account and then you will see all of these resources in there um with uh the lesson videos and you can see there's lots of them and so on general aisle same idea green background you can click that big red button to join us at geoitshelp.com that focuses on the general ielts welcome again paulo hi sujeet hi rumi kanwal good to have you in there all right uh so um the websites are also powered by our apps so if you go to your app store for mobile and search for academic alts help or general ielts hub you can install our mobile app and then link those to the websites we definitely have one of the world's most popular ielts learning platforms uh if you have questions just send me an email adrian aehelp.com i will happily answer any questions that you might have young seoul welcome to the class good to have so many students joining in so yeah as i said uh right now task one general will do task one academic tomorrow we'll do like a pie chart or a line graph i'll decide that a little bit later today and then um for saturday we're going to do lots of speaking so speaking part two uh speaking part three so exciting classes coming up all right let's see here we go uh task one writing uh tsujik you can do whatever you'd like it's up to you all right um okay so ielts writing task one um it's 20 minutes for this task okay definitely do not spend more than 20 minutes on this task and you have to write at least 150 words now high bands they're going to be a little bit longer closer to 200 maybe even a little bit more okay all right uh so i think you know some a question some students might ask and it's a fair question is like how do i know if i need to write a formal or an informal letter right that's a common question so how do i know if i need to write a formal or an informal letter well it's based on the content right so it's based on what the question is right so look at the question and decide from the content okay so if it's for a company then it's going to be formal if it's for a friend um or your neighbor then it's going to be informal okay and in this case if we look at the question carefully you have recently moved to a new city write a letter to an english-speaking friend in your letter explain why you moved describe your new city tell him or her some other news write at least 150 words okay you don't need to write addresses okay if you write an address that will not be counted so don't do that it's wasting your time and then uh begin your letter as follows like dear okay so just a standard kind of way to uh meet your friend all right so good we have our assignment and now we want to make sure that we get a really good band score so getting a good band score um starts with planning okay starts with coming up with some good ideas so first of all here i'm going to teach you a couple of important points here so first of all uh general ielts task one is a narrative essay it tells a story and we discussed this last time okay um and it is written in the first person voice of the author your subjective self okay so basically what we're talking about is uh let me tell you a little bit of a story about myself this is what has been happening in my life these are my feelings this is my opinion about the world around me and this is what i plan to do okay so this is your personal narrative that's what you do in task 1 writing okay so now as we discussed your essay should have a beginning meaning the setting the characters so where it's happening when it's happening who are the characters you your friend in this case maybe some other people like your family okay um and um it should have a middle okay um that's your plot okay so uh events all right and it should have an end a climax an interesting uh point a conclusion to your story okay so when you're thinking about your essay when you're thinking about your letter you need to think about these um first and foremost okay now um good story writing has excellent description okay um in order to create excellent description what do you need to do so think about your writing classes your writing lessons your poetry lessons in order to have a good story you need to have really good description okay so what kind of um language should you use uh to uh have good description okay uh manish we're doing general task one right now but we will do academic tomorrow okay so if you want to be in the academic more go to the uh academic ielts help app and website and the academic english help and general english help channel both share these task ones okay um so carolina says use adjectives numbers places yep so carolina you're on the right track so use quantitative information which means numbers use descriptive language right so use adjectives and adverbs sure and clauses right like which and that absolutely okay um what else very good rajvir so rajvir says use visual language and not just visual language so use sensory language which means visual tactile um auditory okay so like the city is very noisy i can hear the constant buzzing sound of the cars okay so something like that so auditory language tactile language olfactory anybody know what olfactory means oh factory you can remember that it means smell right the city smells of smog and gas okay so i'm giving you some context there so visual tactile olfactory smell right so auditory hearing okay and maybe even taste all right um the city has fantastic restaurants i can still feel the flavor of that incredible curry that i had this morning at the diner just down the street okay so that would be your taste okay stories that include these tactile um sensory kind of language really makes for a much better story and it makes it easier to write fluently and to get to that 150 words right so are your senses gineal yeah absolutely that's why sensory language okay so visual language sensory language what else should you be looking at when you're looking at task one writing there's a really important category of literature that you need to think about when [Music] when you are writing good stories especially good narrative stories anybody know what that is while you think about that i'm going to wish you good luck to amandeep on amandeep's uh for ramandeep's exam on the 30th good luck come on deep on that exam there's another category that you should be looking into and you should study for good english writing especially when you're looking for that band 789 okay lashmi says it's creative language i think lash me your close okay paulo says concrete abstract technique um paulo that's kind of coming into the idea that i'm thinking of as well amanvilli says odor and smell that's the old factory daniel says qualitative qualitative is good to use as well but what i'm thinking of here is what's called literary devices anybody know what that means in literature literary devices so there's a lot of them i don't know there's like 50. there's a lot maybe not maybe 20 but there's a lot of literary devices that you can look into and when you really get into good writing in english you should be familiar with this i think students start to learn about literary devices in like grade 9 grade 10. maybe earlier maybe grade eight but definitely in middle school um students start to learn literary devices yeah rajvir and paulo immediately start thinking of some so literary devices include things like metaphors [Music] they include things like similes they include um things like uh oxymorons cacophonies i have no idea how to spell that but anyway metaphors similes oxymorons cacophonies hyperboles uh yeah no idea on the spelling of these but i'll change them in a second here so oxymorons hyperboles um and more and about 20 more okay so um some of these have to do with sounds some of these have to do um with um imagery uh some of these have to do with likeness okay similes or like or as all right um so kyber says oxymorons like jumbo shrimp um fast turtle okay so you want to uh check into these i'm not going to teach you a whole lesson on literary devices because then you would be here for an entire week and i would not stop talking for an entire week so we'll use some and when we use them in our letter i will explain them to you but i'm not going to [Music] go into a great deal of depth so what you want to do is you want to google examples of literary devices and then you want to practice these it's actually a very fun way to learn english effectively for your writing okay so google english literary devices i mean if you google in english literary devices you should get a list with examples of literary devices you could even google maybe something like um okay try that search phrase so list with examples of literary devices okay and you'll get lots guarantee if you're using literary devices you're going to get a better band score the examiner will recognize that they'll be like oh they're using a simile oh they're using a metaphor this person actually has studied english literature that's what will come to mind okay so when you do that the examiner will say okay this person studied english literature they deserve a band seven or more okay amandeep just googled it and said there's illusion diction epigraph euphemism feresha downing imagery yeah personification is a very good one we'll maybe use some of those today okay yeah okay um very nice very nice so we're on the right track okay so that's good story writing good story writing has excellent description and that's what you want to practice so when you're stuck and you're like i'm out of ideas think have i given enough description okay all right now um we're talking about an informal essay today okay so informal essay or informal writing how's it different from formal writing so in informal writing you can use casual language okay also known as colloquial language um you can definitely use contractions okay like i've uh vade i'm okay so we use that in him from informal writing uh don't use sms or text message language okay um so uh please do not so do not use emojis uh or sms abbreviations okay so for example don't use your like your okay you have to still write your uh if you uh use like your okay in your uh task one general informal writing there you're gonna lose band scores okay um they're going to be like yeah no all right we haven't killed the english language that much yet all right i've seen it so sometimes people think oh that's crazy nobody does that yeah i've seen people do that okay i've seen people use uh sms style language in their task one general writing and i'm like really that's crazy um but no i can see why right i mean it's becoming very common but don't do that okay all right um and then of course informal writing is felt from the diction okay it's felt from that colloquial diction okay so let's get into this let's go back to this question here okay so right now we're writing a letter to of course an english-speaking friend um in our letter uh we have to explain why we have moved to a city now notice that there's present perfect here have moved okay so you should recognize that all right this is going to include some of this present perfect because present perfect shows change over time okay and experience and achievement so these are all connected to moving to a new city now um when i think about okay what city did i move to what should be my best answer okay this is a very kind of fun and tricky um yeah exactly paulo like don't write lol right like laugh out loud okay so um here right away you shouldn't have to overthink this so this is a question to all of you for this question what is your best answer okay what city did you move to here's where your thinking um becomes critical uh for a high band score okay so apollo says a big and vibrant city with a lot of content to talk about [Music] i don't know if i agree with you yet paulo okay uh yeah the recording the stream will be on the channel so you can check this out later absolutely i think it's omar or yeah um so what's the city that you move to think critically here what's going to be the easiest um response okay remember on the ielts your goal is to get a high band score so you want to choose the easy path which city it's kind of almost like a trick question but not really um which city did you move to okay hint hint ielts is not about the truth okay so janelle says i moved to toronto to get a job i don't know if i would go with that one uh carolina says maybe my wish city no okay so that's the trick here no carolina not your wish city so it's the city that you actually live in all right why do i say that so why am i saying just write about the city that you currently live in okay so the ielts examiners aren't going to judge you they're not going to be like oh this person chose vancouver instead of new york i'm going to give them one more band score uh they're not going to do that okay they don't really care which city you're writing about at all okay um daniel says oh yeah it's because i know my city exactly right you already know lots about your city you've maybe even talked to some people about your city in english so you have a lot of information so thinking quickly on your feet is very important remember ielts is not about the truth okay okay you know much about it you may even have experience talking about it or even writing about it in english okay in ielts choose the easy path not the truth or reality okay all right um so keep that in mind okay uh very very important okay um carolina says my ideal city is vancouver yours all right so again don't write about your dream city right because you could get stuck for ideas and it could be more confusing also your own city you probably will know a little bit better okay when you describe a city what can you tell a person about it okay so before you start writing you want to get a couple of good ideas okay so when you explain um living in a city to another person it's an event right it's a place and event okay this is where a lot of students who are regular students will realize that many of those lessons from speaking part two the cue card right talking about a place person idea event this is where they really become handy okay so when you explain living in another city to another person you're talking about both the place the city itself and the event so um amandeep says the type of city okay so uh the location appearance right the people that live there the citizens okay the amenities would be activities what people can do in that city right and then your experience okay so um here it's important that you realize that you're not just talking about the location but you're talking about the event you're talking about the event of living there okay now that we have all of these um ideas we've got lots of clarity uh we can begin and so um let's begin with dear john okay just choose a name make sure you spell it correctly okay and then let's begin our letter so here we go let's start putting together this letter uh first we need the introduction okay so the beginning to our letter the beginning is the setting okay you have to directly answer the question okay so let's begin this letter all right choose a city any city we don't have to have the same city it's perfectly fine i live in victoria uh which is on the west coast of canada situated on beautiful vancouver island so i'm going to choose that and you choose whatever city you want it's totally fine i'm going to check what you're writing and you can compare it to what i'm writing the exact information doesn't have to be the same the structure should be similar okay all right world of cubes this is a general session for general task one but we will be doing um task one academic tomorrow on the same channel okay all right uh even for academic students it's not a bad idea to practice general ads task one once or twice just so you get an idea of narrative writing in english as well okay so all right yeah world of cubes tomorrow for the academic task one okay all right um so first of all we always want to greet and the the individual that we're writing to okay so dear john okay and i'm always searching for detail so i hope you and your family have been keeping well since we last communicated in uh july okay all right um and then i keep going all right so uh you've been in my thoughts these past few days as i have been reminiscing of our fun times together hanging out and playing football okay so i'm just kind of making this up as i'm going along and notice how here i'm already using some of that informal language the contraction you've been now notice that here i write it out i have been um it's okay to use a combination of contractions with no contractions um anybody know what the difference is between using a contraction like you've been versus not using the contraction like i have been instead of writing i've been so technically anybody know what that difference is so what is the difference between using a contraction in your speaking or writing versus not using it yet carolina absolutely so this is formal this is informal but there is another difference so aside from the formality so this is informal this is a formal style there is another difference anybody know what that is yeah michael s says to stress very good yeah this has more stress this has less stress okay because it's more to say right like you've been in my mind or you've been in my thoughts these few days as i have been reminiscing so this is stressing this concept of reminiscing reminiscing means to think about past memories okay so reminiscing to think of past memories okay what i'm putting in brackets is just for your learning so anything that you see in these parentheses these brackets it's just for you uh to learn please don't think about that as part of the actual essay okay all right okay so um here i'm still introducing the letter okay all right now i'm introducing the response uh all right and then you want to answer the question in the very very beginning okay so i've got some exciting news comma that's a leading expression okay so i've got some exciting news again notice that there's a lot of present perfect okay so when we're writing about our experiences to each other we tend to use a lot of present perfect okay because present perfect emphasizes experience this is not a speaking session bk this is task one general writing okay all right um now students write your own sentences so you're watching me you're listening you're seeing me write these sentences but i'd love to see your sentences okay so paula reese writes right to tell you what's going on it's been a long time since last we met or since we met last year i think it was during your grandpa's birthday party right a nice tag question i remembered that yesterday um and i thought it would be good to catch up very good paulo don't do dot dot dot paulo just finish that idea or if you're running out of characters in the chat then yeah go to the next one right don't even do dot dot dot i'd love to just see where you go from this okay thomas vinod writes i have recently moved to a big metropolitan city uh hyderabad which is in india and it has a mixture of old heritage and modern cosmopolitan culture thomas good thomas don't say or don't write city named hyderabad we that's awkward in english to say a city named um we would just say city comma victoria or city of hyderabad okay so we don't actually say city named or called it's kind of awkward okay all right paul yeah youtube can be weird paulo sometimes all right okay um so there is my beginning okay so um i introduced the idea of the question and now i'm ready to write about the plot so why did i move what's happening how is this city how are the people what does this city look like okay so okay so the reason i had decided to move to victoria is because i got a great job offer in september with a significantly better salary and a higher position as an hr senior director i'm just kind of making this up as i'm going along okay so uh i'm thinking of the questions right so what why when where how these are the questions that your reader is thinking about so think about your friend john and think about what john might be thinking like oh great you moved to a new city why did you do it right so that would be their next question is why did you do it um what would be their next question that's great how is victoria what does it look like how are the people okay so think about these questions okay uh janil writes i am telling you the great news that i have been delighted and remembered our amazing childhood memories i have been relocating to the diamond city of india with my spouse and i want to tell you about it daniel you have some awkward language in there um i'm sharing some great news um i'm not sure where remembering your childhood comes into play okay and janil when you're using that language so remembering our childhood memories it's awkward uh use what i'm teaching you here so i have been reminiscing of our childhood okay so janil this as i have been reminiscing i have been reminiscing of our childhood use the new vocabulary janil okay so reminiscing of our childhood okay so um let's say that i lived in vancouver before so although victoria is a much smaller city than vancouver with a population of about half a million people it is rapidly growing and full of upper tunities okay so here is where that quantitative language is coming into the picture okay so although victoria is a much smaller city than vancouver with a population of about half a million people it is rapidly growing and full of opportunities now here i'm using a complex sentence with a conjunction of opposition this is my dependent clause followed by a comma followed by an independent clause you want to show complex sentence structure in your ielts task one even if it's informal if you're using just simple sentences it will be basically impossible to get a band seven or higher okay all right um yeah so mango menace asking what if we mentioned it's been a month since i've relocated so that we can discuss more experiences okay yeah absolutely you can so here i'm mentioning that i moved in september we have no idea what month it is right now so it could be december it could be next year january right so i'm simply just mentioning that i moved in september and again that's descriptive so even if you write last month mangoman write what that month is last month in july right so always add that descriptive factor the more description the more lexical resource the better coherence the higher band score okay hon han reminiscing means that you're remembering the past the past memories okay all right uh paulo says and it's hard to find a teacher uh in don't say previous city apollo but say the city in saint paul no surprise especially when we're talking about a small population yeah paulo it's okay to compare to the last city but don't go into too much detail because the focus is on this city okay so all right so here i'm just doing a bit of writing so that you can kind of see the the language that i was talking about the descriptive language okay so victoria is located on the southern tip of vancouver island and is about one and a half hour ferry ride from the mainland it has tons of green space in fact some people say that the city is situated inside a rain forest indeed when i look out my window i can see hundred meter tall pine trees that guard over the houses around me right so some of you are going whoa whoa you got to slow down a bit there's a lot going on there again remember the topic of this lesson so it's a band 9 informal essay right um anahan i'm doing great in victoria thank you so i want to show you what a band 9 task 1 looks and feels like okay remember in the beginning we were talking about visual language quantitative language using literary devices and that's why when i was typing this you heard me go silent for a minute because i have to think right so even multitasking teaching while writing at this level is very very challenging okay um so notice here that i'm talking about the physical appearance or location of the city and i'm being very descriptive so southern tip of vancouver island all right quantitative language so numbers one and a half hour ferry ride from the mainland ferry ride is tactile you can feel yourself going on a boat and i'm not just writing boat but i'm writing ferry a ferry is a special kind of boat that goes back and forth between two ports it usually can take cars and people bikes motorbikes it has tons of green space that's a hyperbole right so tons is measuring the weight it's like oh tons meaning lots and lots so that's a literary device tons of green space and this is informal so in a formal letter you wouldn't say tons of money you wouldn't say uh dear boss i made tons of money for the company last month it's like okay how much did you make 100 000 a million 10 million right so this is definitely informal type of expression tons okay in fact some people say that the city is situated inside a rain forest okay what kind of language am i using here according to literature okay so some people say that this city is situated inside a rain forest okay and it's true if you take a look at some images of victoria on your uh google images then you'll see it's like we're inside of rainforest okay so what kind of language is this okay what kind of language is that carolina it's descriptive language yeah and when we say some people say that so using this type of writing what is that okay some people say that dot dot dot especially pay attention to this component here say that so it's descriptive this is visual right so inside a rain forest it's very visual language you can kind of see the city in this forest okay almost magical kind of paulary says it's idk carolina says it's reported yeah it's indirect reported speech right yeah so this is called indirect reported speech and when you're writing a narrative okay especially an informal narrative letter using some indirect reported speech is a really good idea so it's not just you but it's people that are saying this your neighbor has said this okay so it's indirect reported speech very very good nice a lot of people are picking up on that now you're like okay i got it right so that's another really good tool especially for informal letter writing okay so using that indirect reported speech okay all right so there's that sensory language that i was telling you about at the beginning of um this lesson so my family and i enjoy long hikes on the weekends in one of the many parks found in the city the smell of the roses the light ocean breeze instead of light it's better to say gentle and sound of eagles it's going to be with a q okay yeah lexical resource i mean some birds they sing some birds they chirp some birds like eagles they squawk okay so there's even very specific words in english for the different kinds of sounds that birds make and that's tricky but hey if you don't know that then just say the sound of eagles right so it's fine you can still get a very very good band score okay so here you have a lot of that sensory language right you can smell the roses most people are familiar with the scent of roses the gentle ocean breeze we can feel that on our skin on our face right um the squawk of eagles right the sound of those eagles and it's true if you're in victoria you can actually have this experience uh makes these adventures absolutely magical all right so that's how you create that sensory language okay paula reese says there's the eagles flying yeah that's right okay so lots of sensory language all right oh okay all right so of course we can keep going and you can write a lot you can write hundreds and hundreds of words but you have a time limit you have about 20 minutes so you have to decide at some point um to put an end to your writing and here when i highlighted this now of course this is with all of my instructions as well i already have 280 words 280 words that's a lot of that's way it's almost double the 150 word limit so you have to be careful and you have to know your ability so you have to know okay am i able to write this much in 20 minutes with clear good english okay you have to make sure that you're [Music] that you're within your time limit and then uh pachu says make sure to check your bullet points make sure to check that you're including everything that the question is asking okay and you certainly should okay so explain why you moved okay check i've done that describe your new city okay check i've done that uh tell him her other news all right i haven't done that i'm running out of time i need to finish my essay and conclude so i'm going to do this with my conclusion so telling him or her some other good news so in fact another reason i'd or another reason i'm writing to you now is because i want to invite you for a visit as my wife and i are expecting our daughter's birth next month and i'm afraid i will be very busy afterwards and we won't have a chance to hang out and i won't be able to show you around victoria for some time okay so again just being creative and imaginative here on making sure that you answer all the points i'm staying in formal all the way so in fact another reason i'm writing to you now is because i want to invite you for a visit as my wife and i are expecting our daughter's birth next month and i'm afraid i will be very busy afterwards and we won't have a chance to hang out and i won't be able to show you around victoria for some time this is a very long sentence notice all the use of ants here and and and and okay that's okay to do in an informal letter as long as you're using it correctly because an informal letter is somewhat like speaking okay so in informal letters you have a little bit more flexibility for long sentences that kind of seem to run on now you do have to be careful with your punctuation to make sure that it is correct and that it's not a run-on sentence okay all right uh unrock says this is way above the word limit um shouldn't we be worried about it again underwrote i'm just showing you all the elements that can come into this so yes you can do this in a shorter way but again remember unrugged that a band 789 task one will be closer to 200 maybe even 250 words okay definitely check to make sure that you have good spelling good writing instead of having tons and tons of words um so please get back to me on your availability so that we can plan around it and have a great time i look forward to hearing from you your friend adrian okay so no period at the end there um all right so that's how we finish it off okay so simply just finish it off and now you're done okay everyone i'm out of time but i definitely recommend reviewing this letter uh in the video when you have the chance take a look at all of those different elements that i incorporated into it it's a little bit lengthy so if you'd like one kind of challenge for you is to shorten it so see how you can make it more concise see where you can maybe take out some sentences or some words but still have it being nice and descriptive a story that you want to read as my friend john okay all right um so again a couple people asking isn't it very long um not if you're going for a band nine so it's not that long if you're going for a band nine a band-aid or a band nine level candidate would be able to write a 200 250 word task one letter with high quality writing in the 20 minutes okay all right um wonder or no it's not a dumb question no there's no autocorrect yeah definitely so you have to take some time and make the corrections okay so uh wonder that's where you want to be extra careful to not write too long but make sure you don't have a lot of mistakes okay all right aishi you are very welcome thank you for your participation everyone okay uh have a great rest of your day tomorrow we're finishing writing task two and we're doing academic writing task one so come back for that okay all right uh check literary devices when you have some time google it okay that's it for today i'm signing out from beautiful victoria here on the southern tip of vancouver island uh much love to all of you wherever you are in this fantastic world of ours stay safe keep our planet safe bye for now you

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Keywords: IELTS, writing, task 1, structure, letter, email, complaint, paragraphs, sentences, vocabulary, introduction paragraph, body paragraphs, conclusion, IELTS description, examination, writing IELTS, writing for task one, writing strategies, correspondence, IELTS task one, Lesson, Teacher, Learn, Student, Free, Intro, Tutorial, IELTS task one explain, IELTS task 2 learning, IELTS task 2 explanations, plan, understand, skills, strategies

Id: WtjTmahM130

Length: 60min 34sec (3634 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 28 2021