FCE (First Certificate in English) - Phrases
A LESSON PLAN FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS
Phrases for Cambridge B2 First emails, letters and reports
Lesson Plan Content:
Business writing in FCE brainstorming
Work together to brainstorm at least two suitable phrases for each of the categories below.
Emails and letters
Salutation/ Opening greeting
Opening line
Starting paragraphs
Indirect questions
Closing line
Closing salutation/ Closing greeting
Reports
Opening the introduction
Explaining what you did in order to write the report
Giving the most important information
Contrasting
Reporting what people said
Giving more information/ Adding details
Summarising
Concluding
Recommendations
Suggested answers
Emails and letters
Salutation
Dear Sir/ Madam/ Dear Sir or Madam
Dear Mr/ Ms + family name
Dear + given name
Hi + given name
Opening line
Thank you for…
It was so nice to hear from you.
I am writing to you to/ about/ because…
How are you?
Starting paragraphs
First of all, I have/ had some questions about/ In answer to your questions about…
There were also a few things I wondered about…/ Now I’d like to answer what you asked me about…/ You also asked me about...
Indirect questions
Could you (possibly) tell me…?
I also wanted some information about…
I (really) need to know…
Closing line
(I’m) looking forward to hearing from you (soon)/ seeing you soon.
Thanks in advance.
Thanks again.
If you need any further information/ If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me./ If there’s anything else you want to know, drop me a line anytime.
Closing salutation
Yours
Best regards
All the best
Love
See you
(textspeak abbreviations like CU are not acceptable in FCE, for some reason)
Reports
Opening the introduction
The purpose of this report is to…
I have written this report to…
This report has been written in order to…
Explaining what you did in order to write the report
In order to prepare this report…
To do so, I…
The data in this report was obtained by…
In order to help make this decision,…
… asked/ discussed/ gave out a questionnaire/ surveyed…
Giving the most important information
The main/ most important/ biggest/ most significant…
Contrasting
However,…
In contrast,…
Although…,…
Reporting what people said
A few/ Some/ Many/ Most/ The majority of/ Almost all the people said/ reported/ complained/ recommended/ believed/ thought…
… are concerned/ worried/ surprised…
Giving more information
In addition…/ …also…
The second most important/ biggest/ most significant…
Another/ An additional/ A further…
Summarizing
Although reactions were mixed, on the whole…
On balance,…
It can be seen from the data/ reactions/ information above that…
Looking at all the things people said, on the whole…
Taking everyone’s comments into consideration,…
Despite the… above, in general it is clear that…
Overall,...
Concluding
For this reason,…
Due to this,…
Therefore,…
Recommendations
I (strongly) recommend/ my recommendation is to/ it is recommended that…
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