You work for a company. You recently found an advertisement for a training course that would be useful for your work, and you are considering taking it. Write a letter to your manager. In your letter: - give details of the course - explain how the course would be useful - describe how the company could support you in taking this course Smith,
Sample Response
Dear Mr. Smith,
I am writing to express my interest in attending a business French course offered by the Instituteby Institute of Business Communication and Languagelanguage from 1 June to 30 JuneJune 1st to June 30th.
The course will provide me with in-depth knowledge of the French language and culture. Specifically, I will learn how to negotiate in French, write professional emails, and improve my pronunciation, which is directly related to my job responsibilities.
As a sales representative, I have meetings with our French business partners several times a month. Attending this course will enable me to communicate more effectively with them and will help me to develop stronger relationships. I believe that this training will be very beneficial tofor our company as it will equip me with the tools to conduct successful negotiations and improve these partnershipsour business relationships.
I hope the company canI am hoping that the company could provide me with the necessary support to attend this course, such as covering the course fee and travel expenses. I would be happy to shareI promise to share the knowledge I gain from the training with my colleagues upon my return.
Thank you for considering my request. I look forward to hearing from youhearing your decision.
Yours sincerely, Hanako Yamada
Why this response received Band 8.5
The letter’s strongest feature is its complete, well-developed coverage of the course, its workplace value, and the specific support requested, all in an appropriately respectful tone. Its main limitation is a small amount of repetition and a few local language lapses, including the missing article before the institute name and the unclear reference in 'which is directly related.' The highest-priority improvement is to polish these isolated grammatical and lexical details.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The response fully addresses the course details, its professional usefulness, and the requested company support with relevant development and an appropriate tone.
Retain this complete coverage while keeping the requested support as specific and practical as it is here.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas are organised into purposeful paragraphs and progress smoothly from the course description to benefits, support, and closing.
Make the link between the course content and job responsibilities even more direct to sharpen the transition between the second and third paragraphs.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied, precise, and well suited to a workplace request, though 'business relationships' and related course terms are repeated.
Use concise alternatives for repeated wording, particularly when discussing relationships and the benefits of the training.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The letter demonstrates a wide range of well-controlled complex structures, with only isolated issues involving an omitted article and an unclear relative-clause reference.
Add 'the' before the institute name and revise the relative clause so that it clearly refers to all the listed skills.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You work for a company. You recently found an advertisement for a training course that would be useful for your work, and you are considering taking it. Write a letter to your manager. In your letter:
- give details of the course
- explain how the course would be useful
- describe how the company could support you in taking this course Smith,
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.