Activity 2: Practicing register using Lesson

Aim: Raise students' awareness of register and develop their ability to manipulate it in their writing.

Moodle modules: Lesson

Extra programs: None

Ease of setup: ***

Before we help students to use register appropriately in their writing, we first need to make them aware of it. We can then set up a task which gets them to use what they've learned. In this activity, students will be asked to distinguish between formal and informal styles of writing.

Formal writing is characterized by more attention to accuracy, clarity of meaning, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and choice of more neutral vocabulary. By contrast, an informal style is often chosen where writers don't feel it is necessary to be so clear, because the situation is not formal or because writers know each other well and don't need things to be spelled out. Clearly, there are some situations where it is important to get the register right.

Let's have a look at a letter of invitation to a party...