Letter writing

There are lots of activities to help with the drafting, editing and proof reading of letters.

• A jigsaw exercise.  Learners sort component parts of a letter into the right order.  More able learners may have some red herring elements in their jigsaw.
• A proof reading exercise.  There's nothing quite like finding what's wrong with someone else's work.  Write a letter filled with errors - 10 or 20- and ask learners to find and correct them.
• Matching activities for the conventions of yours sincerely and yours faithfully.
• Audience and purpose grids - decide who and what different letters are aimed at and then compare the kind of language used.
• Writing frames
• Cloze exercises.
• Write a letter to an 'agony column' and then swap and have learners reply.  This is useful as learners can look at a magazine or newspaper and discuss the model beforehand.  Make sure that the topic is one that learners are happy to share. 
• A group activity with people taking turns to contribute and edit.  Thus enables the tutor to model the writing process.