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: Justyna

Read Justyna'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.

How are you? Gd It's taken me ages to reply but I was terribly busy with - establishing details of my trip to London. I appreciate it, that you are willing to. /\ Frankly, I'm exhausted. Sometimes I think that's /\ not /\ 6-month stay but at least /\ 6-year one.

Generally the main reason I go WT to the UK is to develop my language skills. I don't have any experience in working abroad so I chose waitressing. I think it would be perfect to spend evenings working whereas daytime would be devoted with WW sightseeing as well as meeting my friends.

I'm keen on visiting Gd Kew Gardens and Tower Castle. However, I've dreamt about seeing Big Ben since I was a child too.

What about details of the trip? I've just fixed my departure time. It will be June the 7th, at 8 am. As far as I know the flight lasts four hours so I should turn up at Heathrow near midday. I hope we will meet soon in London. Keep smiling!

Love,

Justyna

PS: Give my love to the whole family, especially to Richard. Tell him not to worry. I'll try to help him with that project. Gd

Feedback

This is a lovely email Justyna! You give your penfriend a clear idea of how you're planning to spend your time in the UK and when you're planning to arrive. The email is very well organised with each paragraph dealing with a specific topic and you've also made good use of linking words and tenses to create some complex sentences. The tone of the email is just right with friendly questions and good use of contractions. All in all a very good attempt!

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