Know Your Audience
IELTS letter writing seems easy, but without a consistent tone, your Task Achievement score will be 6 or lower. This lesson will ensure that your score can increase to a band 7 and higher. Specifically, you’ll learn what tone is, and how to improve your own ability to use it accurately.
What is Tone?
Tone is basically the way we sound formal or informal in different situations.
The reason we change the tone of our language is that it affects how people view us. If we want people to think we are polite, intelligent, or reliable, we use a formal tone. If we want people to think we're relaxed, fun, or friendly, we use an informal tone.
Important
For IELTS letter writing, there’s no need to worry about semi-formal language as formal and informal is enough to meet the examiner’s requirements.
When to use Informal vs Formal Tone
For the Training General Task 1 question, you are always asked to write a letter. As shown in the tabs below, if you're asked to write a letter to a friend, you must use an informal tone. However, if you are writing to anyone else, such as a college administrator, you must use a formal tone.
WRITING TASK 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
A photograph you submitted to your local art gallery has been selected to feature in an upcoming exhibition.
Write a letter to your English-speaking friend. In your letter
- tell him/her about your good news.
- describe the photograph
- invite him/her to attend the exhibition with you.
Write at least 150 words.
You do NOT need to write any addresses.
Begin your letter as follows:
Dear...,
Comment:
For this Writing Task 1, you're asked to write a letter to a friend, so you would use an informal tone in your letter.
The Importance of using Appropriate Tone
In the following PPT, you will be shown a few common mistakes that test takers make using appropriate tone that have a big impact on their task achievement score and, in turn, their overall writing score.