Task: Your English speaking friend, Andrew, is thinking of starting a small business providing holiday camps for children. Notes :
- give opinion on wheter you think activities like water sports,camping and climbing could be successful;
- tell Andrew about how do people spend summer time in your country;
- say that you will help him organising this camp;
- ask for details about the accomodation.
Please Sherida, could you also give me an FCE mark, please?
Hi Andrew,
thanks for your letter. I'm really glad you finally made a decision about that.
According to me, this kind of activities are going to attract and catch the attenction of a lot of people. It's also a different way of getting fit and healthy. Nowdays, in a technologic generation, It's really hard to find young people not playing computer games and spending their time outside also during sunny days!
Despite all, children in my country usually go swimming or playing soccer during summer time. Only some of them join little summer camps organised by the Church, where they can play a plenty of interesting games.
I'm completely free this summer so It will be absolutely grateful to help you with the organisation. It's an opportunity for me to increase my knowledge and my experience.I'd like information on where I'm going to stay and with who, please.
Love,
Caroline
Hi Caroline,
ReplyDeleteProfuse apologies for taking so long to comment - for some reason I missed the notification when you originally posted it and the last 10 days have been very, very busy for me!!
To give a general comment first: You have set it out in the correct format and answered all the points of the question, so that's good!!! I think to be safe it might be better to actually mention the names of some of the sports in the second paragraph rather than generalise, because it shows you've actually looked properly at the letter! Also, possibly in the first para you could specify what the decision is rather than just saying "that" (but I am nitpicking here).
The letter mostly reads well with nice extended sentences and good use of relative clauses etc which might well push it into the B bracket.There are also a couple of awkwardnesses which detract slightly, so overall I would say it's most definitely a pass and very possibly a B rather than a C. Here are the few little awkwardnesses:
- Don't forget to start with a capital letter!!! I know there's only a comma after the "Dear ..." but you still start with a capital!!
- ...about that. As I said above, better to spell out what "that" is!
- "According to" we only use when we are quoting what someone else says, e.g. "According to my teacher, my writing is very good." We don't use it to mean "this is what I think". Here you could say "In my opinion."
- this kind of activity is... or these kinds of activities are...
- Spelling - attention!
- Adjective = technological
- "even on sunny days" rather than "also during".
- What exactly do you mean by "despite all?" Do you mean "Despite this (i.e. the fact that most kids don't play sports)?
- plenty of = without the "a"
- "Grateful" is how you feel when someone does something nice for you!! I think you mean "absolutely great" here!
- "I'd like information..." is a bit sharp here. Perhaps "Could you give me some details of where I'm going to stay.....please?"
- "who with" or "with whom". If you put the preposition first you HAVE TO use the form with the "m"!!!
That's everything I think!! As I said, a nice clear letter fully answering the question. Well done!!
Very best regards,
Sherry
Hi Sherida,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your advice and of course for your time ! Those helpful information are very important to me.
Thank you again, and best regards to you too,
Caroline