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Planning Tips Phrases to start informal letter paragraphs, including It was ? to hear from you I’m sorry to ? 7 pieces of advice for all your writing - what? is king - obey what? - be the what? not "a student" - write to whom?, not (usually) the teacher - make it look right from where? - Ex-? - use what intelligently? Synomyms Hope/b---/tr--- Shocked/disa---- Matter/sub---- Ask/req___ Advice for formal letters What are some of the magic words for making your paragraphs flow? "Answer me, then we can organise our trip." In an informal letter? Abbreviations " BTW " and emoticons " ;-)" Appropriate? "Kisses" Nice or nasty? Collocations for Advanced Categ---- d---- Dee--- reg--- Sinc---- ho----- Tot--- rej---- Bad News conversion I can’t ---------------, I'm ----- I have to ----- you it ----- ----- we ---- not be able to... Follow us on

Now's your chance to put to work what you have seen - on page three of this PDF are three exam questions. Spend five minutes planning one or more using the intstructions below and post your ideas here if you want us to comment! - Decide who is the target audience/reader and what is the formality level? - Explain what the reader should have/know/be given/do next at the end of reading your piece - Decide how many paragraphs you would write and their functions, with some language examples - List the vocabulary topic area(s) and some examples, with synonyms where/if possible Follow us on

One Way to Plan Your Work There's no single way to plan a writing answer, but here's a two-step process that tries to get you to focus on - the tasks you've got to do - the language you need to use - avoiding copying from the question - getting variety in your vocab Take a look at this question : Apply this two step process. Step 1. a. Underline all the FUNCTIONS you have to carry out in this exercise. b. Highlight the important information words in the question. Here are's our version: Question You are reading an English language magazine and you see details of a language school that you are interested in. LEARN ENGLISH AT YOUR OWN PACE! If you would like to study English on a course that has been specially designed to meet your needs and interests, then contact the Principal of the Effective Learning School giving detail s of your: Motivation for studying English; length of time studying English; strengths and weaknesses in the language ...

Advice and exercises can be found here . Follow us on

What to include in your report. Follow us on

Things to Include in your Article vocabulary connected to the topic grammar to do the action in the question ("give advice" >>> should, if I were you, etc.) stay within 10% of the word limit write sufficient clear paragrpahs connect your sentences try to be interesting show some personality don't forget a title Follow us on

Here's a recent whiteboard related to planning your writing. Remember to try to be as specific as possible with the consequences that come from your answers to the questions. Here's an example if it was, for instance, an email to Sally about your holidays: Q1 . Who´s it for? My friend, Sally. > So it's informal >> So I start with something like "Hi Sally!" >>> So I finish with "Write soon!" >>>> Just before that I probably need something like "Keep in touch" or "Let me know" >>>>> I probably need something like "Thanks for the email" at the start too. >>>>>> I need to remember it's informal when I express other functions (asking for things, apologising perhaps) and in my vocabulary. Do the same for questions 2 to 4 and question 5 is the total of 1 to 4, pretty much. Good luck!

Some tasks on paragraphs and organisation. Go here for one on narrative organisation (useful for stories, review and writing about trips, travel etc, and here for another. Go here for another on sentence transformation to develop more complex sentences. Finally, go here for some complex sentence writing. COndense your ideas into fewer words to make a real impression.

Helping you plan and organise your wriiting. Go here for 15 (yes, 15!) Fact Sheets, 8 worksheets and even a game to play. The materials here are for all kinds of writing. Exam students should choose carefully for the kind of writing you will find more useful (notice all the work on letters!). Concentrate on the topics you find most challenging.

Make sure your vocabulary in your homework is showing you can talk about the topic. Identify the topic(s) in the question, then use your coursebook . Find the chapter(s) in your coursebook that refer to the topic(s) and look out some useful words. At FCE aim for six-plus, ideally a mix fo verbs, nouns and, best of all, some combinations and, if the formality is right, a phrasal verb or two are very wise. At CAE it's similar, but you're probably looking for ten words/phrases or more. Check your formality carefully, and be on the look out for synonyms at all times. Follow us on

Some general advice from Las Rozas teachers about writing a review: Remember the usual elements - - answer the exact question - think about the style, format and presentation - decide carefully on your number of paragraphs You'll also need some more specialist language too - specifically: - some language for opinions - descriptive words (for example suitable adjectives and adverb+adjective combinations) - specialised vocabulary for films, books or whatever For example, do you know which words here are for which media? Soundtrack, chapter, script, screenplay, plot, titles, set, location, scenery, star., co-star.. To help a little, there's nothing wrong with taking ideas from the net, so here are a couple of places to look for reviews that are not too colloquial (which many magazines and websites are). http://www-amazon.co.uk/ - just look for comments on almost anything - from cds and movies to hairdryers and food mixers! http://www.dark...

Presentation Matters Remember, there is a Distance Test for writing. Can you - - count the number of paragraphs in your writing from a couple of metres away? - get someone to tell you what it is (letter, article) from how it looks from a distance? Stand on the far side of your living room and look at your writing to check!

Some interactive l inking words practice for FCE here . Follow us on

The photo is not very good, so here's what you need to remember - the question is king - obey word limits - be the writer not "a student" - write to the recipient, not (usually) the teacher - make it look right from a distance - Experiment - risk-taking is good - use your student book and online resources intelligently Questitions or comments welcome Follow us on

Some keywords when writing essays. Can you predict the advice they come from? Outline what at the start? Start with an interesting what? Main paragraphs start with topic what? In main paragraphs, give detailed what? After your main paragraphs, you may have a summery or a summary one? You might finish with...what? Go here for one method you might like to adapt to CAE length.