Formal vs Informal Register

B1 · Intermediate1 hr 13 minBusiness EnglishLesson 4 of 8 · Outline

Aims

Goal: read any email situation, pick the right level of formality, and write the same message correctly at every register.

The lesson, stage by stage

  1. Warm up5 min

    Warm-up: Reading the room

    2 warm-up questions

  1. Reading10 min

    Reading: Understanding Email Register

    Read a 186-word text about Understanding Email Register

  2. Vocabulary8 min

    Vocabulary: Register Vocabulary

    7 items

  3. Framework6 min

    Framework: The Formality Scale Framework

    The Formality Scale, 4 steps

  4. Reading10 min

    Reading: One message, three registers

    Read a 278-word text about One message, three registers

  5. Practice7 min

    Practice: Match Formal to Informal

    Matching exercise, 6 items

  6. Practice7 min

    Practice: Fix the Register Mismatch

    Error-correction exercise, 5 items

  7. Dialogue10 min

    Dialogue: Rewriting at Different Registers

    Role-play: Practice rewriting the same email at different levels of formality. (3 lines)

  8. Discussion10 min

    Discussion: Your mission: one message, two registers

    3 discussion questions

Open the full lesson

The remaining 8 stages of this lesson, with the procedure, the examples and the exercises, are included with Starter, along with the interactive version you can teach from. Lesson 1 of this course is free: the full plan is on this site, and a free account opens it in the interactive player.

Start with lesson 1, freeSee Starter pricing

Target vocabulary

In a Tuton account these words become your student's vocabulary deck, so they come back in practice between lessons.

registerformalinformalneutralsalutationcordiallyrapport

This plan comes from the Professional Email Writing course in the Tuton library. Browse all free lesson plans.