Hi everyone, it's Mr. Brown here with your English lesson for today, and we are going to be analysing something, analysing language.

We're going to be analysing the language in a non-chronological report, really trying to understand how someone constructs a non-chronological report and the language they use.

So let's go for it.

The Outcome for today's lesson is, "I can understand the appropriate language to use when writing a non-chronological report on The Great Fire of London." And the keywords, which will help us on our learning journey for this lesson are formal, informal, questions, contractions.

My turn, your turn.

Formal.

Informal.

Questions.

The last one is contractions.

Very good, okay? So we're going to start looking at writing using a formal tone and then we'll move our lesson onto looking at questions to the reader.

So let's start with a question from me to you.

Have you ever noticed there are times when people speak and behave differently? Have a think.

Have you ever noticed there's times when people behave and speak a bit differently? Maybe you've heard someone at home answer the phone and use a different, well, voice to what they would normally use.

You may have seen television programmes where the presenters are speaking and behaving very differently.

For example, the host of a children's TV show will speak, behave, and generally present themselves in a different way to a newsreader reading a news report for adults.

Now this is because there are times in life when people are required to be more formal.

Formal means something, or someone, is using a serious, impersonal, and unemotional tone when reading the news, the newsreader's job is not to give their personal opinion, it's not to tell you what they think about the stories, it's to present the news in a formal way.

They are not there to be fun.

They are there to present the news in a formal, serious, impersonal, and unemotional tone.

Now there are many other times when people need to behave formally, job interviews, for example.

When you are older, you will be attending a job interview where you will be trying to convince someone to give you a job, and that is a formal thing to do.

Making speeches.

You might have seen someone make a speech at your school before, standing up in front of an audience and speaking, perhaps in a more formal tone.

School settings, a school, while we have fun in the playground, and playing with our friends, a school is generally a formal place.

It's a place where we have to wear a uniform, usually, at most schools, and we have to walk through the corridors rather than run.

We have to use manners when we are speaking to people.

Ceremonies, of course, there are different ceremonies across the world and they are formal, they have a level of formality, so let's check our understanding.

Formal means something, or someone, is using a serious, and unemotional tone.

Is that True or False? Pause the video and decide for yourself now.

And welcome back, okay, let's see if you were right.

Formal means something, or someone, is using a serious, impersonal, and unemotional tone is true.

Well done if you said true.

Now there are lots of times when being formal is not required.

The opposite of formal is informal.

We are informal when we are chatting with family and friends, relaxing at home.

Now everything has a place on the formality scale, whether it's formal, informal, or somewhere in between.

And you can see at the bottom of the page there, I've put a formality scale, informal on one side, formal, on the other.

Like a news report, written reports are formal, therefore, you need to know how to write formally.

This lesson will teach you the main things you need to know to be able to write a formal non-chronological report.

A non-chronological report is at the formal end of the formality scale.

Let's check our understanding.

A non-chronological report should be written in an informal way.

Is that true or is that false? Pause the video and decide for yourself now.

Welcome back, everyone.

A non-chronological report should be written in an informal way, false, it is a formal piece of writing.

It should be written in a formal way.

Well done if you said false.

Extended noun phrases allow us to add extra detail and information about a noun.

An expanded noun phrase can be formed of two listed adjectives before a noun.

Adjective, comma, adjective, noun.

This is how I always remember an expanded noun phrase.

Adjective, comma, adjective, noun, adjective, comma, adjective, noun.

For example, vast is an adjective, then there's a comma, fast-moving is another adjective.

Fire, vast, fast-moving, fire.

Adjective, comma, adjective, noun.

Or narrow, comma, crowded streets.

Again, it's adjective, comma, adjective.

noun.

The adjectives chosen in an expanded noun phrase determine whether the description feels formal or informal.

For example, murderous, roaring fire feels quite informal.

Something that you might have in a fiction text, describing the fire as murderous, and roaring like a lion.

This is not appropriate for a non-chronological report.

Vast, fast-moving fire is appropriate because it's much more formal.

In a formal piece of writing, the adjectives used should be factual rather than descriptive.

Dazzling, monstrous, ominous, menacing, wild, these are all descriptive, they are informal, they are not factual.

Bright, dangerous, burning, blazing, uncontrollable.

These are factual.

The fire is bright, it is dangerous.

It's definitely burning, it's blazing and it's uncontrollable, we know that from our knowledge on The Great Fire of London, whereas describing the fire as menacing is trying to make it feel alive, giving it character.

And this is something that you would do in fiction writing, not non-fiction, and not a non-chronological report.

These adjectives used here are all strong descriptive words, dazzling, monstrous, ominous, menacing, and wild.

I am not for one second telling you that I would not love to see these words in a piece of fiction writing.

They would be perfect in a piece of narrative fiction writing.

However, they are not suitable for a formal report because they are not factual enough.

Let's check our understanding.

Which of these expanded noun phrases would be suitable to use in a formal report? A dazzling, menacing flames.

B, monstrous, wild flames.

Or C, large, uncontrollable flames.

Which of these would be used in a formal report? Pause the video and decide now.

Welcome back, everyone.

Let's see if you manage to spot the expanded noun phrase that could be used in a formal report because it is suitable for that formal tone.

Dazzling, menacing flames.

No, too informal, too descriptive, feels like fiction, doesn't it? Monstrous, wild flames, or large, uncontrollable flames.

Well done if you said C, large, uncontrollable flames.

The flames are large, that's a very factual word, isn't it? Describing something as large.

It's just saying how big it is.

It's not something like looming or monstrous, it's just saying they're large, and they are uncontrollable.

They were not able to be controlled by the people of London.

Well done if you said C.

When two words are shortened and put together to make a new word, it is called a contraction.

There's one of our star words, contraction.

For example, did and not, if you put those together, you'd get the word didn't.

Didn't is the contraction.

Where do you think contractions should be placed on our informal to formal scale, and why? Have a think.

I'll give you a moment to think about the answer to that question.

Where do you think contraction should be placed on our informal to formal scale, and why? Contractions are informal, and therefore, should not be used in a formal report.

They are at the informal end of our scale.

Let's check our understanding.

Which two of these should you not use when writing a formal report? A, didn't.

B, did not.

C, couldn't, or D, could not.

Which two of these should you not use when writing a formal report? Pause the lesson, or pause a video and decide for yourself now.

Welcome back, everyone.

Let's see if you are right.

So we've got four answers here.

Two of them are contractions, didn't, and couldn't.

Can you remember if contractions are used in a formal report? Well, well done if you said didn't and couldn't are not used in a formal report, and they are not suitable for formal writing, well done! Let's have a practise.

I would like you to rewrite this paragraph by editing anything that is informal and replacing it with something more formal.

Let's have a look at the paragraph.

"Sadly, Thomas didn't remember to put out the flickering, gentle oven in his cosy, warm kitchen and a dazzling, crimson blaze soon grew out of control.

He couldn't believe his eyes as his beautiful bakery was consumed by flames as bright as the sun." Hearing that, does that sound formal or informal? Well, your task is to rewrite that paragraph by editing anything that is informal and replacing it with something more formal.

Pause the video, and have a go at that task now.

Welcome back, let's see if you are able to spot all the informal things and replace them with something more formal.

So I have replaced "Sadly" with "Unfortunately." Sadly is quite an emotional word, isn't it? We are describing this as sad now.

Obviously, The Great Fire of London was a very sad thing for lots of people, but we, when we're writing a formal report, aren't giving our own emotional opinion, we are just saying, "Unfortunately." Now, instead of saying "Thomas," I've added, "Thomas Farriner," I've given him his full name.

I don't know this person.

So to call him by just his first name, doesn't seem appropriate.

"Didn't" I've replaced with, did not" because as we know, contractions are not used in a formal piece of writing.

"Put out," I thought I would replace with, "extinguish" some more technical vocabulary to make it a bit more formal.

"The flickering, gentle oven," I've replaced with "wood-fired" oven because it would've used wood to create the heat.

So again, factual.

His "cosy, warm kitchen," well, "cosy and warm," this all just sounds too descriptive like we are writing a story.

So I've replaced it with "his small kitchen." and a "dazzling, crimson blaze." Well, that's gone and been replaced with, "dangerous, hot blaze." Now if you look in the first paragraph, we had, "He couldn't believe his eyes as," now this is a very fiction-type phrase to use.

"He couldn't believe his eyes." So I've replaced that with, "Mr. Thomas Farriner's local bakery was consumed by fast-moving, bright flames," instead of "flames as bright as the sun." Lots of changes made here to make it a much more formal piece of writing.

Let's move on to Questions to the reader.

When writing a formal non-chronological report, the writer is always considering ways to keep the reader engaged.

When we are writing, we are thinking about our reader, and in this instance, we're thinking about how to keep them engaged.

One effective way to do this is to ask direct questions to the reader.

However, asking questions must be done in a formal way to keep consistent with the tone of the report.

It wouldn't make sense if our report was formal throughout, apart from our questions, which were informal, let's check our understanding.

An effective way to keep the reader engaged is to ask direct questions.

Is that true or false? Pause the video and decide for yourself now.

Welcome, back.

An effective way to keep the reader engaged is to ask direct questions, so it's true, well done if you said true.

Let's check our understanding further.

Questions do not have to be asked in a formal way and kept consistent with the report.

Do they, or do they not? True or false? Questions do not have to be asked in a formal way and kept consistent with the rest of the report.

Pause the video and decide true or false, now? And welcome back, everyone.

Congratulations, if you said false, questions do have to be asked in a formal way and kept consistent with the rest of the report.

Now some question starters are more formal than others.

There's our informal to formal scale, again.

Did you know that.

Is an informal way to start a question.

Did you hear about.

Again, is another informal way Did you see that.

These are informal ways to start questions.

A more formal way to start a question would be, "Have you ever heard.

Have you ever considered.

Or, were you aware that.

These are much more formal ways.

These are the ones to use in a report.

Questions are also helpful in allowing the writer to vary the way that the information is presented in the report.

Rather than giving information as a statement every time, the writer can share the information through a question.

Instead of saying 'The fire started in 1666.

' We can say, 'Have you ever heard about the fire that started in 1666?' Let's check our understanding on this.

Which of these questions is suitable to use in a formal report? A, Were you aware that there was no organised fire brigade in 1666? B, Did you know that there was no organised fire brigade in 1666? Or C, Did you hear that there was no organised fire brigade in 1666? Which one of these is suitable to be used in a formal report? Pause the video and decide for yourself now.

Welcome back, everyone.

Let's see if you were right.

So we know that starting with, did you know or did you hear is not formal enough.

So were you aware, is the answer, A, is the answer Were you aware that there were no organised fire brigade in 1666? That's the tone to use for a formal report.

Okay, let's have a practise.

I would like you to turn these facts into questions that can be asked directly to your reader in a formal report.

So I've got three facts for you here.

Number 1, The fire started on Sunday, the 2nd of September, 1666.

Number 2, the Lord Mayor ordered buildings to be blown up as firebreaks to stop the fire spreading.

Number 3, The people fighting the fire only had buckets, axes and water squirts.

Three facts, your job is to turn those facts into questions that can be asked directly to the reader.

So they will still have this information given to them, but it'll be done through a question.

It's over to you.

Pause the video, and turn these facts into questions now.

Welcome back, everyone.

Let's see how you got on.

So Number 1, The fire started on Sunday the 2nd of September, 1666.

And that as a question might look like.

Have you ever heard about the fire that started on Sunday, the 2nd of September, 1666? It's the same information, but phrased as a question.

Number 2, Were you aware that the Lord Mayor ordered buildings to be blown up as fire breaks to stop the fire spreading? And Number 3, Have you ever considered that the people fighting the fire only had buckets, axes and water squirts? Three facts turned into three questions.

Well done if you are able to turn the facts into questions yourself, to summarise our learning, in today's lesson, where we have been analysing the language to use in a report about The Great Fire of London.

A non-chronological report must be written in a formal tone, avoiding language choices associated with fiction writing.

Contractions are not used in a formal piece of writing.

Information can be shared with the reader by phrasing it as a question.

Well done, I feel like you have now got an excellent knowledge of the language to use in a report.

I will see you again very soon!.