Informal Letter Writing 2: Responding to Questions.

For Cambridge exams (especially PET) students need to be able to reply to an informal letter or email. They need to use structures to begin and end their letters effectively and to refer back and respond to the message in the exam question (see image below). This post has activities for referring back to points made in the exam task and at the bottom of the page you'll see a link for my previous post on starting the letter.

This activity uses really useful phrases which I stole from Michele Rankin at The School (thanks Shelly!)

The phrases in colour are things that students can learn and incorporate into most informal letters, particularly for the PET exam.

In the letter above, I have used these phrases to refer back to the email in the exam task:

Your idea about ............. sounds great!

Regarding your question about .............,

I use this PowerPoint to practise using the phrases:

Informal Writing Responding to Questions and Suggestions HighImpactEnglish.pptx

Once students have practised this and the previous activity for starting their letter (here), give them some exam-style letter questions for homework. They should now be ready to pass letter writing exam tasks!