IELTS Writing Task 1 General Training - Formal Vs. Informal Letters

hi everyone Chris here from aisle to Vantage hope the well and in today's live lesson we're going to focus on writing task 1 general training and we're going to look at the difference between formal and informal language so if you are an academic student this lesson is not for you but you'll find lots of academic videos on our YouTube channel and so go and check out our YouTube channel and you'll get lots of help with task one academic there but if you are general training definitely keep watching because we're going to look at something very very important which is the difference between formal and informal language so why is this important what's important because to get one of the higher bonds if you're looking to get about seven or eight or nine in your IELTS writing test you need to use a consistent tone throughout your response so you need to choose the correct tone and then use that tone consistently throughout your response if you're hoping to get a seven or above you really need to understand the difference between formal and informal and be able to use it so not only knowing the difference between the two but being able to use it on test day is absolutely essential so what not to do so this is what most students do and this is why most students are unsuccessful when it comes to this they learn lists of words and phrases and they insert them into their task one response and so they learn a list of formal words and a list of informal words and they'll just put those in there and hope for the best and this is really really obvious to the examiner when you do this it's obvious that you do not know what you're doing and it never works alright if it worked I would tell you I would give you a list of words and what we're gonna do in this lesson is something completely different and and is what you should be doing if you want to improve so what I'm gonna do is I'm going to show you two sides of basically the same question all right one side is going to be formal one side is going to be informal and we're going to test you and ask you which one you think is formal and which one we think is informal and we've highlighted the formal and informal language to make it a little bit easier for you so if you have a look here left and right left and right left and right and we'll ask you to identify in the comments which one is formal which one is informal so many of you might be asking or thinking what about semi-formal lots of books websites YouTube channels talk about there are three different tones that you need to be aware of formal informal and semi-formal forget about semi formal you do not need it the only two that you need to worry about are formal and informal semi-formal just makes things really really really complicated and makes things way more difficult than they need to be there are only two you need to be aware of and how will you know the difference between you know which one to choose the key word there is friend if it's a friend then it is informal anybody else then it is formal and semi-formal confuses everybody because people are like well I'm writing to my boss so what if I know my boss is it going to be semi-formal or I'm writing to my neighbor and I'm I know my neighbors like should it be not be semi-formal you're overcomplicating everything and you are applying um your own life to an objective IELTS question you need to stop doing that just stop over complicating everything and get out of your own way and make things as simple as possible friend informal anybody else formal okay so let's have a look at this question write a letter to a friends telling them you lost your bike tell them where you lost it what was in it why it is important and then here same question but just writing to a different person alright writing to your boss so one is going to be informal one is going to be formal and it should be you should use language that reflects that and is consistent throughout the whole response so what I'm going to do now is show you two sides and I want you to tell me if it is formal or informal now just a word of warning because it demonstration because we're doing it on the jam board I've shortened everything if don't think that this these should be reflect the lengths that I would use if I was doing the IELTS test I've shortened everything just to make things as easy as possible for you so this one started it off with dear Tom both of them say dear Tom because in the test it's going to tell you to start off with dear whether it is formal or informal normally informal you wouldn't use dear but in the test they'll tell you to start off with dear so have a look and tell me which one left or right is formal on why always try and justify your opinion because by justifying your opinion by saying why you're learning if you just say Oh left normal right informal not really think about it you're not going to learn anything so have a look I'm think about why I'll see if I can get YouTube up here and look at your comments Oh forgot so most of you think that right is formal so one of you said you use conjunctions right as formal seconds for what yeah okay so let's have a look at the reasons why right is formal so right is formal so here I am I'm generally generally not always but generally when you're using contractions so contractions is when you get to words I am put them together I'm we we will wheel so putting them together I am I'm so I'm it's a contraction it's more informal language generally and when you don't use the contraction use two words instead it's generally more formal and let you know inform you okay this is more formal language than let you know in general things like phrasal verbs and are more informal and we would use those when we're writing an informal letter compared to not using them in using more formal language so I'm writing to inform you I'm just writing to let you know very obviously different okay so let's have a look at the second one left or right which one do you think it's formal which one do you think is informal and say why a lot of you are just saying right is formal left is informal or something like that say why that's where the learning comes in I'm not just silly me alright should actually just delete that because it gives it away so again all of you are just saying right left right but nobody is saying why okay so why is this formal so this one is formal why see the reason why I'm forcing you to say why is if you don't do that if you don't do that at home when you're learning you're never going to learn anything and so that that's the whole purpose of this lesson is to show you how you can improve your formal and informal language at home and so if you're just reading and going formal and formal and not really thinking about specifically why you won't be able to do it on test day and that's what it's all about it's about being able to do it so it's not it's not a test of can you identify the difference between formal and informal language it's going to be a test of can you use formal and informal language so in order to do that you have to understand why so I'm on my way to again a lot more informal and while traveling - all right again phrasal verbs things like that are a lot more informal and I reckon all right I believe I reckon this is more an informal way of saying like I believe or I think and believe don't be just a no it's not a formal or informal word really and but reckon is definitely an informal word and you know it does this mean that you should memorize this word and insert it into your informal letter on test day know definitely do not do that don't memorize the word and then use it and because you might get a question that has nothing to do with wreckin has nothing to do with this word and then if you just have memorized words and then insert it into your writing you're going to be in a lot of trouble so let's have a look at the next paragraph so get justify your opinion why do you think one is formal why do you think one is informal I'm not sure about this phone it's just exactly this it was find Justin got a new iPhone but I can't tell the difference in this one and the e it seems exactly the same the counter is better I hear ok so ok so some of you are saying type of words or vocabulary or you know it's formal because of vocabulary or it's formal because of type of words think about the specific reasons why that is Tanveer says because it's professional what do you mean by professional so can you go into the the test and say I'm going to write this in a professional way that's not going to help you but understanding the actual the more finite detail the more detailed reasons why that is that's going to help you Gladys says it's more explanatory a formal and informal well you could be very informal and explain things very very well and you could be really formal and be terrible at explaining things it's not about being explanatory um tansy because the description is clear it's not it's not about clarity you can be really informal and be very very clear so good this is good because a lot of you are making this mistake many of you would think that this is formal because it's long and it's descriptive and it's clear that's nothing to do with formality just because this is short doesn't automatically mean that it is informal it is informal but it's not informal because it's short or it's not as clear as this many of you will fail the test because of this mistake because you think that writing a really long clear professional answer and means that you're using formal language when it doesn't and many of you will think that using short answers in short language and it means that you're using informal language that's not what it's about either so it's great that you guys are making these mistakes because you're going to learn from that and so the most significant item contained my laptop was in there okay that's very clear that is very very clear my laptop was in there extremely clear and it's not unclear it's just less formal the most significant item contained in the bag my laptop was in there I'm quite sure I'm a hundred percent and again a little bit more informal and but the the reason why I made one very very long on the other one short was to demonstrate this point that many of you think that length a number of words equates to formality when it doesn't be very very careful about that last one this is the best comment left is formal because it's written in formal language okay good more colloquial colloquial language in formal language slang language slang words and things like good contractions good phrasal verbs good so these are the things that you need to think about contractions phrasal verbs colloquialisms idioms these are more informal examples of language not just saying I think it is because it is that doesn't mean anything that's what my four-year-old would say like my four-year-old would say I like chocolate because it's nice like that doesn't okay doesn't really help me understand why I likes it okay so you okay so contraction instead of you will they've contracted that to you alright that's a contraction is an example of a of informal language I regret to tell you very very formal you'd never um you know imagine meeting your friends and you need to give your Fred bad news you'd never say Justin I regret to tell you that like you wouldn't really do that dick Justin's laughing because your friend would start laughing your friend would say why are you speaking to me like I'm your boss and screwed so screwed is an informal way of saying I'm in trouble okay I'm something bad is going has happened to me and you wouldn't say that's your boss you wouldn't say I'm screwed because it's a little bit informal but it's using that sort of it's not really slang and flying is something a little bit different I'm screwed is more informal language okay so hopefully that has helped you understand what you should be doing in order to improve your use of formal and informal language so you're not looking at lists of words you're not looking at lists of informal phrases and formal phrases and using those what you're doing is if you identify that this is a weakness of yours so imagine you're your teacher looks at your task one response and says you know one of your main weaknesses is the use of formal and informal language you should be getting your teacher to help you with this and tell you what your specific weaknesses are then what you should be doing is part of your preparation every single day is you should be reading you should be listening so if this is something specific that you need to focus on when you're reading a book or reading a newspaper article or reading a blog or whatever you're reading underline the formal language underline informal language when you're listening listening is going to be very very rich in informal language or if you're listening to a academic lecture that could be very rich in formal language do you need to note these things done and then improve your ability to use formula and informal language naturally okay so excellent so thank you very much for watching if you need help with your IELTS preparation go to my website so just Google IELTS Advantage and you'll get lots of help so we have help with writing speaking reading listening vocabulary so if you need more help with writing task 1 you just click on writing task 1 and you can go have a look lots of stuff there general training lessons there's another video there about general training task 1 if you're worried about general training task 1 this video is quite good and it gives you a general overview of what to do if your test is tomorrow good luck and if you need any help feel free to get in touch hope that you enjoyed that video and thank you very much to the people who participated and I hope that you find that exercise useful see you again next week next week we're going to focus on listening and we're going to do three lessons three live lessons on listening and the reason for that is many of you have emailed me saying that you need an app and eight and listening and for immigration purposes so next week we're going to focus a lot on how to get you up to a band aid for listening thank you very much guys and it was a pleasure teaching you today and have a great weekend bye bye

Channel: IELTS Advantage

Views: 120,192

Keywords: IELTS, IELTS Advantage, IELTS Test, English, Pronunciation, live lesson, Band 7, subscribe, www.ieltsadvantage.com, IELTS Writing, Chris Pell, lesson, IELTS listening, Practice tests, tips, ielts listening, international english language testing system, ielts speaking, grammar, listening, ielts tips, IELTS Writing Task 1 General Training - Formal Vs. Informal, IELTS Writing Task 1, Formal Vs. Informal letters

Id: rk4BWIo0Hec

Length: 19min 21sec (1161 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 05 2018