Wednesday 24 July 2013

Free online English course

People, these days, prefer to learn English online. This has encouraged many language learning websites to
come up with a number of different English learning courses, both free and paid. Some of the free courses available on the internet are:
  • Courses with learning levels:  Most English learning websites has courses according to levels – Basic/Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced that are built in such a way that they cater to the specific requirements and the capabilities of the learners.
  • Vocabulary course: This is a popular course that focuses on helping the learners to increase their stock of words, introduce them to new words on a regular basis and also to retain the words previously learnt. This section may include small sub sections or sub topics like Idioms, Proverbs, Collocations, etc.
  • Spoken English course: This is probably one of the most sought after courses. In our daily lives, we mostly speak to people before we write to them. People opt for spoken English courses to satiate their affiliation needs or to excel at their work places. Therefore, this course is extremely popular among the learners.
  • Grammar course: Almost every English learning site has an inbuilt and integrated grammar course serving solely to simplify the grammatical concepts related to the English. This is also a very popular course as grammar is the base of every language.
  • Career course: This course generally focuses on career resources like writing impressive resumes, effective cover letters and the like.

Monday 15 July 2013

How to write a letter




The official letters are written concisely with a well define objective. There is a set of rules that need to be followed while writing a “formal letter”. Some of them are given below.

1)     How formal the letter should be depends on the person you are writing to. To write an official letter whom you have professional relationship with, formal English language should be used else semi formal may be used.
2)     Choose the mode of sending the letter i.e. whether it needs to be sent via email or post. The current trend is to send letter by email.
3)     Use blue or black ink to write a letter.
4)     Always use the letterhead of the organization while writing a business letter. In case the letter head is not available, then don’t forget to write your address, contact number and email address. The informal letters should have the return address written on the top right corner or on the cover letter if you are sending it by post.
5)     The letter should have a date. It is advisable to write the month in letters instead of numbers. E.g. instead of writing 01-09-2013, write ‘01 September 2013’
6)     Write the full name, address and contact number of the recipient in separate rows. Do this only with the business letters to be sent by post. It is not required while sending the letter through Email.
7)     Give a line space after it and write the subject of the letter (for formal letters only).
8)     Give a line space and then begin the letter with the salutation. Choose the salutation as per your relationship with the recipient e.g you can start like Dear Sir, Dear Madam etc.  Write “To Whom It May Concern” if you do not know the recipient.
9)     Then leave a line space and write the body of the letter. Remember that in formal letters the content should be concise. It should be according to the purpose you are writing for.
10)  Add the Valediction at the end like “Sincerely Yours”, “Yours Faithfully” etc.
11)  Sign the letter after putting valediction. After signing, write your name below it. There is no need to sign an informal letter. You can only mention your name.
12)  Proofread the letter before sending it. Recall your objective of writing the letter and read out the content. Ensure that the content of the letter should be in accordance to the objective of writing it.