See this sample Informal Email/Letter from the Cambridge English First (FCE) Writing paper with feedback from a teacher

Writing Class: Informal Email/Letter

Task Type: Informal Email/Letter

Question
You have received the following email from your English penfriend:

It's a really brave step to take a year out of college to come and spend 6 months in the UK! What are you planning to do with your time? Find a job? Learn some new skills? Write back and give me more details of your plans so I can do my best to help you have a good time...

Write your email/letter of reply to your penfriend (around 140-190 words).

Makeover: Olimpia

Read Olimpia's answer to this question below. Try correcting the piece of writing yourself first: use the marking codes to think about what might be wrong (or what's good) about the piece of work. Then when you're ready, click the green buttons in the text for our feedback.

Dear Mary,

I was very happy to hear from you. I thank you very much for helping me with all these arrangements. Gd

First of all, my intention is to study, to improve my English. You know that I really want to become a WF English teacher. O

As a part of my practise WF I think it will be fantastic to stay in a host family to share the eating habits and customs.

Although I am prepared to pay all the expenses with WW the course and host family, it will be valuable if I can work as a baby-sitter, to earn extra money to use in WW additional expenses and travelling in my free time. I would love to visit touristic WF places in /\ UK. I would appreciate /\ if you could send me some information about the courses available starting in January or websites that WW I can search for this information.

I look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you in advance for your help. Gd

Best wishes,

Olimpia

Feedback

This is a really nice answer, Olimpia! Your email/letter is well organised and it is clear what your plans are so your friend will be able to help you.
I like the way that you have achieved a polite tone in this email/letter and the language errors that occur are fairly minor. Well done!

Marking Code

/\ Word(s) missing

- Omit word

C Capitalization

Gd Good

O Organisation

P Punctuation

PE Poorly expressed

R Register/Formality

SS Sentence Structure

S Spelling

T Tip

WF Wrong form

WO Word order

WT Wrong tense

WW Wrong word

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Cambridge English: First