Formal email to a partner school: register and clarity
You are in Year 10 at a Hamburg Stadtteilschule. Your class is planning a joint project week with a partner school in Manchester from 14 to 18 April. Your teacher asks you to write the first email to the partner school's project team. The notes are: our class has 28 students; we can host 10 guests from Manchester; we need a confirmed number by 1 March; we can offer vegetarian meals; we would like a video call in the week before. You write 120–150 words in a formal tone. Your draft contains: “Hi guys, I am writing you because of our project. We are looking forward to meet you in April. We have 28 pupils, which is very much. Please answer us until 1 March.” Your teacher says the content is mostly there but the register and three expressions are not yet at MSA level. She asks you to decide which changes are essential, which are optional, and how to deal with the fact that you cannot yet confirm the exact number of host families.
1. Identify the three expressions that most need correction and give corrected versions. Explain why each matters for the MSA.
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Priority 1: “Hi guys” is too informal for a first email to a partner school. Use “Dear Project Team” or “Dear Year 10 Project Team”. Priority 2: “I am writing you” is informal/American-influenced; in a British formal email, use “I am writing to you”. Priority 3: “looking forward to meet” is grammatically wrong because “look forward to” is followed by a gerund: “looking forward to meeting you”. A fourth important change is “Please answer us until 1 March” → “Please let us know by 1 March” or “Please reply by 1 March”; “until” describes a duration, not a deadline. For MSA, these are not cosmetic: they test register, verb patterns and false friends. The content is understandable, but the examiner will notice the informal opening and the incorrect preposition/gerund patterns.
2. Rewrite the sentence “We have 28 pupils, which is very much” so that it is clear and appropriate. Explain your choice.
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Better: “Our class has 28 students, so we may need to share the hosting.” Or: “There are 28 students in our class, which is a fairly large group.” The original is a literal transfer from German (“sehr viel”) and does not work in English in this context. “Which is very much” describes an amount, not a group size, and it sounds awkward. “Pupils” is not wrong in British English, but “students” is more common for Year 10 in this kind of email. The rewrite also adds a consequence - sharing hosting - which is useful for the partner school. In the MSA, the goal is not to use the most difficult vocabulary but to be clear, polite and accurate. A concise sentence with a logical link is stronger than a literal translation.
3. You cannot yet confirm the exact number of host families. Write one sentence for the email that handles this honestly and politely. Explain why you would not simply leave the point out.
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Sentence: “We are still finalising our host families and will confirm the exact number by 1 March.” This is honest because it does not promise a number that the class cannot yet guarantee; it is polite because it gives the partner a clear deadline and shows that the class is working on it. Leaving the point out would be risky: the partner school needs to plan flights, meals and rooms, and silence could be read as disinterest or as an implicit confirmation. A good MSA email gives complete information, names next steps and avoids overpromising. If the number is uncertain, the writer should say what is known, what is not known, and when the missing information will follow - exactly what this sentence does.