It is important to learn how to write formal and informal emails since emails are an important way to communicate in business and organizations.
If you ask me, I use email for work related matters, some of the emails are highly important and others are informal.
Important emails usually comes from your boss and informal emails comes from colleagues you are good friends with.
Table of Contents
Formal and Informal Emails: Greetings
These are some examples of greetings that you can use in formal and Informal Emails
These are some formal expressions to greet
| Dear Sir/ Madam | Dear Mr/ Ms Jones |
| To whom it may concern | Dear Dr Smith |
These are some informal expressions to greet in English
| Hi Dennis | Hello Claire |
| Hey Everyone | Hi everyone |
You can also use expressions such as:
| Good Morning | Good Afternoon |
| Good Evening |
Ways to Close Informal and Formal Emails
These are some key phrases
| Best Regards | Regards |
| Best Wishes | Many Thanks |
| Truly yours | sincerely yours |
| Stay in Touch | I hope to hear from you soon |
| See you next week | Thanks for your help |
| Cheers | Many thanks for your help |
| Bye for now | See you soon |
Ways to Give Bad News
These are some key phrases to give bad news in English
| I am afraid that | I am sorry to tell you |
| I have to inform you that | Unfortunately |
Ways to Give Good News in English
These are some ways to give good news in English
| I am happy to tell you | I am happy to inform you |
| Fortunately |
Example of an Email: Information Request
Hello
I’m a university student from Brazil and I’m writing to get some information about the UTN. I’ve got a few questions:
- Where is the UTN located?
- How many classes do you have to take per quarter?
- How many days a week do you have to go to the university?
- What services does the university offer?
- What majors does the university offer?
I’m hoping to come over in June, so if you can get back to me as soon as possible, it would be great. Thanks for your help.
Best regards
Jaana Nikkinen
Lesson Plan – How to Write Formal and Informal Emails
These are some ideas to learn more about formal and informal emails, I created the lesson having the task-based approach in mind.
Schema Activation (10 Mins)
- Teacher play chinese whispers with the students with some key vocabulary studied in class.
Pre-Task (45 Mins)
- Teacher plays chinese whispers
Task #1 (30 Mins)
- Students review new vocabulary using a Tiny Card Set
- Students make pair, they are given a worksheet with expressions
- Salutations
- Ways to close an email
- Giving bad news
- Giving good news
- Friendly Ending
- Students classify the different expression into categories. Once they are ready
- They get together with another pair and and they review their answers together using the question:
- What do you have in #1? I think #1 is …
Task #2 (15 Mins)
- Students are given a list of scrambled sentences.
- They unscrambled the sentences
- Then they make pairs and check if their answers were right
- Students are given an email, they have to read it and analyze the question in it
- They have to write a reply to that email
Task #3
- Students are given an email someone wrote asking information about a University
- They have to read the email and reply the questions included in it.
Main Task (40 Mins)
- Students are gonna write a formal and Informal Emails about a beach trip and they are going to send that to their classmates.
Post-Task (15 Mins)
- Students are going to answer a quiz with questions related to formal and informal emails
Other English Lessons
These are some lessons that you might be interested in
- How to Introduce Yourself in English
- How to Talk about Your Last Vacation in English
- Actions in English: Guide & Examples
- How to Describe Graphs and Charts in English
- How to Describe your Neighborhood in English
- How to Tell the Time in English
- How to Describe Appearance and Personality
- How to Order Food in English
- My Education in English
