Formal letters & letters of complaint
A formal letter is one you write to someone you do not know personally — a shop manager, a newspaper editor, your principal, or a company. In this Paper 1 writing lesson Miss Veronica builds the formal-letter skeleton with you, piece by piece: your address on the right, the recipient's on the left, a greeting, an underlined heading, three neat paragraphs, and the sign-off. She teaches the classic exam rule — Yours faithfully when you did not know the name, Yours sincerely when you did — the polite, no-contractions style, and then the letter of complaint itself: saying what went wrong, how you feel, and exactly what you want done, firmly but never rudely. We plan a full complaint together about a faulty phone, ready for the fifteen-mark task.
By the end you should be able to (NSSCO English Second Language 5.3):
- Learners should be able to explain what a formal letter is and when it is written (to an official, a company, an editor or someone they do not know personally)
- Learners should be able to lay out a formal letter correctly, with their own address and date on the right, the recipient's name and address on the left, a greeting, a heading, body paragraphs and a sign-off
- Learners should be able to choose the correct greeting and matching sign-off, using Yours faithfully after Dear Sir/Madam and Yours sincerely after a named person
- Learners should be able to write in a polite, respectful, formal style, avoiding contractions and slang and remaining firm but courteous
- Learners should be able to write a letter of complaint that states what went wrong, when, how it affected them, and exactly what they want done
- Learners should be able to rewrite an aggressive or rude line as an assertive, polite one
- Learners should be able to plan a guided complaint of 100–150 words for the fifteen-mark task (Content /8 + Language /7)
Miss Veronica and Mike talk through the whole topic — with the figure and working drawn live.