Lesson Planning - Formal Complaints
Background: As part of my duties as an English teacher in Japan, I teach English writing to university students. The curriculum confoundingly focuses on contexts and lexical chunks rather than starting with a foundation of specific grammar points or specific structural elements in writing (such as transitional/signal words and phrases) and building from there.
Even though my students are studying subjects like law, architecture, and mechanical engineering, they are all required to take English writing. As a result, it can be difficult to keep the students motivated, especially compared with our speaking classes. With this in mind, I have been trying to incorporate more kinesthetic activities into my writing lessons. One wouldn't think that writing classes would present ample opportunities for kinesthetic activities, but so far it seems to have served the lessons well by keeping the students energized and engaged.
This is based on a pre-written lesson plan that I changed and adjusted significantly, and it went particularly well. This one was focused on writing formal complaints.
Objective: Students will be able to write short, formal letters of complaint about products.
Warm-Up: I started the lesson by explaining what a complaint (and as it relates to products we purchase) is and the three elements that we need in order to write a letter or e-mail of complaint.
The three elements are 1. Introduction, 2. Explanation of the problem, and 3. Requesting action.
Present: There are groups of phrases that have been hung on the wall and slightly cut so that they can be ripped off for a "rip and run" activity. The phrases fall into three categories: introducing a complaint e-mail, an explanation of a problem, and a request for action.
One student from each group (or they can take turns) come up to rip off one phrase at a time and run it back to their group. Then, as a group, the students decide which column to write the phrase into: Introduction, Request Action, or Explanation. The phrases include "I would appreciate it if..." (request action), "I am writing to complain about..." (introduction), and "I ordered _______, but ________" (explanation of problem) among others.
Note: As previously mentioned, the lesson requires us to teach these lexical chunks. If it were up to me, I would have focused on one or two points in terms of the grammar or register used in writing these complaints, such as the use of modal verbs in making polite requests.
Controlled Practice: Students are given two e-mails of complaint to compare. One e-mail is very informal and rude. The other e-mail is very formal and polite. Students have to decide which e-mail is formal and which is informal. They also have to identify the introduction, explanation of the problem, and the request for action.
Note: If we had more time and if the students had slightly higher levels, I would have preferred to take some time to have the students compare the phrases used in both e-mails and decide why the phrases in the informal e-mail were informal and why the sentences in the formal e-mail were formal. Again, language analysis is not built into the curriculum, and there is generally not enough time in a lesson to explain the differences in register.
Free Practice: Around the room are pictures of different objects that have something wrong with them. For example, there is a picture of a broken mirror and a bicycle with a broken chain. Each picture is accompanied by a prompt to help the students with vocabulary (e.g. car/missing tires). In partners, students will go around the room and write short complaint letters with an introduction, explanation of the problem, and a request for action as it relates to the picture.
Fluency: Students are asked to write a short letter of complaint about a product they bought from a company. They are encouraged to use real-life examples. Students need to include all of the elements we discussed earlier. Students are told that their letters should be 5-6 sentences long. If there is time remaining, students are asked to either share their letter with a partner or share their letter and have their partner write a response as if they were a representative from the company (although we did not really discuss the language that would be used in these sort of responses).
Even though my students are studying subjects like law, architecture, and mechanical engineering, they are all required to take English writing. As a result, it can be difficult to keep the students motivated, especially compared with our speaking classes. With this in mind, I have been trying to incorporate more kinesthetic activities into my writing lessons. One wouldn't think that writing classes would present ample opportunities for kinesthetic activities, but so far it seems to have served the lessons well by keeping the students energized and engaged.
This is based on a pre-written lesson plan that I changed and adjusted significantly, and it went particularly well. This one was focused on writing formal complaints.
Objective: Students will be able to write short, formal letters of complaint about products.
Warm-Up: I started the lesson by explaining what a complaint (and as it relates to products we purchase) is and the three elements that we need in order to write a letter or e-mail of complaint.
The three elements are 1. Introduction, 2. Explanation of the problem, and 3. Requesting action.
Present: There are groups of phrases that have been hung on the wall and slightly cut so that they can be ripped off for a "rip and run" activity. The phrases fall into three categories: introducing a complaint e-mail, an explanation of a problem, and a request for action.
One student from each group (or they can take turns) come up to rip off one phrase at a time and run it back to their group. Then, as a group, the students decide which column to write the phrase into: Introduction, Request Action, or Explanation. The phrases include "I would appreciate it if..." (request action), "I am writing to complain about..." (introduction), and "I ordered _______, but ________" (explanation of problem) among others.
Note: As previously mentioned, the lesson requires us to teach these lexical chunks. If it were up to me, I would have focused on one or two points in terms of the grammar or register used in writing these complaints, such as the use of modal verbs in making polite requests.
Controlled Practice: Students are given two e-mails of complaint to compare. One e-mail is very informal and rude. The other e-mail is very formal and polite. Students have to decide which e-mail is formal and which is informal. They also have to identify the introduction, explanation of the problem, and the request for action.
Note: If we had more time and if the students had slightly higher levels, I would have preferred to take some time to have the students compare the phrases used in both e-mails and decide why the phrases in the informal e-mail were informal and why the sentences in the formal e-mail were formal. Again, language analysis is not built into the curriculum, and there is generally not enough time in a lesson to explain the differences in register.
Free Practice: Around the room are pictures of different objects that have something wrong with them. For example, there is a picture of a broken mirror and a bicycle with a broken chain. Each picture is accompanied by a prompt to help the students with vocabulary (e.g. car/missing tires). In partners, students will go around the room and write short complaint letters with an introduction, explanation of the problem, and a request for action as it relates to the picture.
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