Term 2, 2004
Overview
Understanding the purpose, style, structure and tone of English business writing
is an invaluable skill for students in their future careers. Business Correspondence introduces the fundaments of effective
writing, giving students plenty of opportunity to master these skills.
Purpose
By the end of the course students should be able to
- understand and use tone
- slect appropriate words and phrases
- understand the relationship between purpose, audience, and style.
- select and use appropriate formatns for correspondence
- edit and proofread their work
- write good-news letters
- write neutral/routine letters
- write negative letters
Materials
Business Writing for Hong Kong by Graham T. Bilbow
Supplementary materials: Company to Company by Littlejohn, Email writng by
Zyzo
Assessment
8 weekly assignments, participation, attendance
Title of Unit
Business Correspondence
Prefatory Statement
Keeping track of current information
is essential for any business to survive. This unit is intended for those who have professional reasons for writing in the
business world. The unit covers skills for different types of letter writing and will help students develop invaluable skills
for their future careers. Developing these writing skills will help to alleviate breakdown in communications in the long
run. Issues of ethnicity and gender does not play
a role in this unit.
Class Specification
This unit is appropriate for learners who are in or will be entering the business
world. Age is not a limiting factor and any socio-economic group can participate.
Significant Assumptions
Think through what teacher beliefs are behind your development of this unit.
How do you think students learn? What are your assumptions both surrounding the concepts of the unit and how students will
best acquire its concepts?
Outcomes/Standards/Objectives to be met.
BEC
What do you want the students to have learned by the end of the unit? What content,
skills, concepts should they have developed/learned? Make these both specific and general? Assessment procedures should be
able to work from these outcomes, so be careful in their construction. Figure out which Standard can be connected to or central
in the unit. A performance package (assessment) will be linked to this standard.
Whole class Activities
Read assign texts, handouts...
Small group Activities
Are there outcomes and assessment for these activities that will make students/groups
accountable?)
Individual Activities
Ongoing Activities
Include a description of activities that will occur throughout the unit. This
may include descriptions of journal work (learning logs, response journals, lit logs, eta.), reading projects, group projects,
writing workshops, community work, eta.
Student Recources
Include a list of physical materials needed by the class during the unit. When
considering the literature itself, try to work for a balance of male/female, western/non-western authors when appropriate.
What else will students need to have during their class periods or at home during this unit of study?
Unit Launch
Describe how you will initially motivate your students to engage in this unit.
What materials you might use with students in this lesson. You may chose to make this one of your detailed plans for one of
the three days.
Organization of the unit
A week by week run down of what
will happen
Organization of the unit
A week by week run down of what will happen
Week 1 - Back to Basics
Week 2 - Back to Basics
Week 3 - Good News Letters
Week 4 - Good News Letters
Week 5 - Bad News Letters
Week 6 - Enquiries
Week 7 - Replies to Enquiries
Week 8 - Sales Correspondence
Week 9 - Sales Correspondence
Week 10 - Orders
Week 11 - Orders
Week 12 - Review
Detail plans for two days of the unit.
Include time that each activity in the methods section will take, include
homework for each day. You need not do the class description or rationale for each day as that will be in the prefatory statement.
Make sure that each day has objectives that match up with the unit's standards/outcomes/objectives and make sure that each
day has assessment, ways that you will know that students have met the outcomes you designate.
Supporting Materials for Teachers Who Teach the Unit
Include discussion questions when you indicate above that a discussion will
take place. This is part of the gift you will give to busy colleagues in the field. Include handouts that present significant
projects or on-going activities to students.
Assessment package
Students use Canadian Language Benchmark standards as a self-assessment
for writing only.
