General Rules for letter writing

Welcome to the Internet and the electronic highway!

We are going to use this “road” to meet people from other countries and other cultures. Using the computer for writing and sending letters is a very fast way to communicate.

It is much faster than ordinary mail which some people who use the Internet jokingly call "snail mail". In addition to writing e-mails other facilities of the Internet, such as building Webpages, participating in chats or forums or exchanging  materials, like photos and videos,  will also be  suggested to you as a way of getting to know each other better.

The idea behind this project is to give you a good idea of your partner's personality and background, and to learn a lot about his or her country. 

By writing letters and using some of the facilities of the Internet, you will get to know someone who may, in some ways, be very different from you. But after a while, you will find out that you have a lot in common too, even though you may live thousands of miles apart.

Every time you are asked to write an informal letter to your partner, a boy/girl of your age.  Each letter covers a particular theme, but you can also add personal experiences, hopes, wishes or worries.

The most important parts your letter should be:

• place and date

• salutation or greeting

• body (with a short introduction, the content and a conclusion)

• complimentary close

• signature

• P.S. (Latin: post-scriptum), if you want to add something you forgot to write.

For letters written on paper – snail mails

For e-mails

1. Always start your letter at the top on the left of your paper. 2. Start by writing the number of the theme in a snalil mail.                           Theme: .............. Then write down the date (March 3). The names of the months are:                           January      May        September                           February    June        October                           March        July         November                           April          August     December Then write down your name and the name of your partner:                           From: (your full name)                          To: (his/her full name) 3. Start your letter with:                            Dear + the name of your partner, then put a comma.                             Dear Susanne,                             Dear partner, 4. End your letter by using one of the following expressions:                             Kind regards,                             All the best,                             Bye for now,                             Yours truly, 5. There should be a number of paragraphs in your letter. You always start a paragraph, at the beginning of the new. When you write about something new, always use a new paragraph. Add a question or two but not about the topic as your partner is anyway going to write about it. You could use one of the following ideas:                              How are you doing?                              How are things at school/at home?                              What have you been doing recently? 6. Always answer your partner's questions. Show interest in the things that he/she has written about and about how things are going there. Comment them sometimes. 7. Use a dictionary!!!

1. Always start your letter at the left top of your screen. You don’t need to write the date in e-mails as it is written automatically by the program. 2. Start by writing the full e-mail address of your partner.                           To: (partner’s full e-mail address, check it twice if it is written correctly)                          Subject: (letter ...., theme for name of your partner, example: Letter 1 –                          Introduction for Tom)                          CC: (send a copy of your letter to your teacher and the partner’s teacher)   3. Start your letter with:                            Dear / Hi / Hello + the name of your partner, /Hi then put a comma.                             Dear / Hi / Hello Susanne, proceed with a capital letter. 4. End your letter by using one of the following expressions:                             Kind regards,                             All the best,                             Bye for now, Bye, bye                             Yours truly, 5. There should be a number of paragraphs in your letter. You always start a paragraph, at the beginning of the new. When you write about something new, always use a new paragraph. Add a question or two but not about the topic as your partner is anyway going to write about it. You could use one of the following ideas:                              How are you doing?                              How are things at school/at home?                              What have you been doing recently? 6. Always answer your partner's questions. Show interest in the things that he/she has written about and about how things are going there. Comment them sometimes. 7. Use a dictionary!!!

An example of the e-mail layout: