How to write a letter: formal or informal style?

Knowing how to write a letter is a very important skill (at school, in business, for general personal relationships).

I have created two simple Glogster interactive posters to show  formal and informal letter layouts. By moving your cursor over the images, some links will appear. Click on them to get more information.

You will learn:

• the structure of a letter
• the difference between a formal and an informal style
• the conventions of formal letter writing

Informal letter

Formal letter

Some useful resources about letter writing:

http://www.letterwritingguide.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/topic/writing-a-letter
http://www.usingenglish.com/resources/letter-writing.php
http://www.studyenglishtoday.net/business-letter-parts.html
http://esl.about.com/od/businessenglishwriting/a/Formal-Letter-Structure.htm
http://www.usingenglish.com/resources/letter-writing.php

Some exercises:
http://www.tolearnenglish.com/english_lessons/writing-letters-exercises

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Let's talk about the UK (still with Scotland)

At the beginning of the new school year teachers usually explain to their students what they are going to study. Sometimes efl teachers not only teach grammar but also British culture, so one of the first cultural topics they discuss with their students are the geography of the UK and its form of government. Here you can find an interactive mindmap, a digital poster and a  collection of useful websites, just to simplify the work.

Click on the Glogster digital poster below, you will find general information about the United Kingdom and some videos.

Now take a look at my Cacoo mindmap below about the UK form of government. I have edited it with Thinglink to make it interactive. Pass your cursor over the image, you will see that some links will appear.

You can also click on the following link to enlarge the above image:

http://www.thinglink.com/scene/568385850161758208

SCOTTISH REFERENDUM

Last September, 18th Scottish people voted for Scotland independence. The question they were asked to answer was "“Should Scotland be an independent country?” The majority of voters answered "NO". Click on the following link to learn more about the referendum: 

https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/scottish-independence-referendum/about; 

then watch the video below from The Guardian.

Scottish referendum explained for non-Brits

Here you can see the referendum results.

If you want more general information about the Uk government, the Queen and the Royal Family, open my Blendspace lesson.

STUDENTS' TASK

Use Cacoo or some other mindmapping tool to draw your own mindmap about the Scottish referendum (what the referendum process was; what "yes"  and "no" voters wanted, etc.)

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For teachers - Infographics and interactive posters

Posters can easily draw student's attention but they should not be just wall decoration. They should be used to study in deep some topics or to visually organize concepts.
Posters should easily be seen, so you need colours and images. Now you can create you own poster in a few minutes or you can even make it interactive!

This time I tried Piktochart. 
http://piktochart.com/ 

It is very useful to create interactive posters. I already tried Thinglink and Glogster. 

(An example with Thinglink at http://thetravellingteachers.blogspot.it/2014/02/welcome-activities-this-is-our-school.html

An example with Glogster at http://thetravellingteachers.blogspot.it/2014/01/for-teachers-some-digital-tools.html)

You can save your work as an image (.png or .jpeg) or copy the url if you want to use it as an interactive poster. In this case you have to add links, videos, etc. to your project!

The following is an example of a project saved as an image. I've created it to advertise the study tour I am organizing for my students:

This one, instead, is an interactive poster showing our English class activities, with videos and links:

https://magic.piktochart.com/output/1198513-journey-of-love

Have fun with your posters! 

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