Practical Business Workshop
Sarah Creagh Horth
sarah@loveslang.com
All content copyright Sarah Creagh Horth 2009 www.sarahhorth.com
1.

Course Outline
Introduction
Course Introduction
Warm-up
Communication Socializing
LUNCH LUNCH
Negotiation Skills
Teleconference &
Web conference
Role Play
Role Play
Closing
3.

Contents
Course Outline 3
Communication 7
A. A communicator is… 8
B. Types of communication 8
C. Vocabulary 10
D. Listening 10
E. Exercises 11
Teleconference 13
A Introduction 14
B. Teleconference Etiquette 18
C Teleconference Process 19
Socializing 31
Tips 33
Negotiation 35
A. Overview 36
B. Preparation 38
C. Behavior 44
D. Basic Assertive Communication 48
E. Practical Negotiation 51
Pair Work 59
Tape Script 63
Writing Homework 67
Bibliography 83
5.

Communication
7.

Introduction
A. A Good Communicator is…
A good communicator
B. Types of Communication
1. Chart
Spoken Written
8.

Types of Communication
2. Goals
GOAL
NOW
9.

Introduction
C. Vocabulary
Good communicator
Bad communicator
D. Listening
Listen to Rachel Tucker, a director from Media Mind Inc in San
Francisco, speak about communication and answer the questions
below.
1. Listening for the main point
What two things does Rachel think that have improved communication
between companies?
1.
2.
2. Listening for detail
1. What examples of technology does she give?
2. How does she say these improve business communication?
3. What example does she give of a problem with communication?
4. What does she think would fix it?
10.

Warm-up
E. Exercises:
1. Self introduction
Thinking about what makes a
good communicator, take two
minutes to think about and
prepare your self introduction.
Then make it to the class.
2. English Help: Opinions
3. Pair Work
Your instructor will give you some topics to discuss, take turns saying
“yes” and “no” and argue your opinion.
11.

Teleconference and
Web conference Skills
13.

Teleconference: Introduction
1. Pros
Save money and time
2. Cons
Case Study: Canadian/German Software Company
German experience:
• Thought Canadians spoke very quickly
• Frustrated at not understanding
• Not able to join the discussion
• Disliked arguing over the phone
• Liked time to develop their opinion/position
Canadian experience:
• Thought German silence meant they didn’t have anything to add
• Continued teleconference with little German input
14.

Brainstorming: Problems
3. In small groups brainstorm what problems you might have during
teleconferences.
15.

Teleconference Problems
4. Add to the lists below
General problems
• Speaking order difficult to control
• People speaking over one another
• Message is misunderstood
• Lack of knowledge
• Equipment problems
• Some are distracted during phone conversations
• Some don’t participate fully
International problems
• Native speakers speaking too quickly or unclearly
• Leader/speaker not checking that international members have
understood
• Native speakers using slang and colloquialisms
• Native speakers using sarcasm and humor
• Handouts all in English
16.

General Vocabulary
What is it called? What do we talk about?
Teleconference items points
Conference call issues problems
What do we create afterwards?
Who attends?
minutes summary
Moderator Participants
transcript
What do we do?
brainstorm negotiate
suggest recommend
discuss (not “discuss about”)
decide
Listening Skills
How to study
• Take time and effort to develop your listening skills.
• Study a little and often (10 minutes)
• Don’t panic when you don’t understand
• Listen for general understanding
• Listen for the stressed words as usually most important
• Don’t expect to improve suddenly
What to study
• http://esl.about.com/od/listeningquizzes/
• Movies
• CDs
•
•
•
17.

Teleconference Etiquette
• Be on time
• Wait for the leader to introduce you, if
late
• Be in a place with little background noise
• Use mute button if background noise
• Use phone with handset
• Don’t use cellular/cordless/speakerphone
unless needed
• Pick up handset before speaking, when
using speakerphone
• Turn off call waiting/other lines’ ringers
• Identify yourself before speaking
1. This is your name from your company/department/area.
2. Your name here.
• Say people’s names before speaking to them
• Direct questions to specific people, not generally
• Don’t put your phone on hold (put it on mute instead)
• Keep handset away from your mouth unless speaking
• Excuse yourselves if you want to talk amongst yourselves
1. We would like some time to discuss this as a team.
2. We would like a few minutes to discuss this in Japanese.
Etiquette for larger teleconferences:
• Wait to speak until you are invited to by the leader
• Use the leader’s name and wait for a response
• Go through the leader when wanting to comment on something
another called said
Leader’s name, your name here, can I ask other caller’s name
to rephrase her last point?
18.

Teleconference Process
Roll call
Introductions
Meeting outline
Objectives
Agenda
Rules
Guidelines
Time limit
Presentations
Discussions
Pause often for:
•Feedback
•Questions
Summarize
Clarify action
Closing
19.

1. Introductions
A. English Help
I would like to welcome you to…
This will last approximately …hours/minutes.
We should be finished by…
I am going to take notes during the meeting and e-mail them
.
to you.
When…has finished speaking I am going to open it
up to questions.
Please say your name before speaking.
People
Hi, who just joined the call?
Welcome, just a moment while everyone joins the call.
Is anyone/everyone from the Tokyo team on the line?
I’m going to call the roll. Let me confirm who is on the line.
Late introduction:
Sorry for the interruption, …has just joined us.
It appears…has joined us, please continue.
Outline
On today’s agenda is… Firstly… Secondly… Lastly…
Today’s objective is… I called this meeting to address...(issue/problem)
Excuses
She’s in another meeting and should join us at 3pm.
I’m only available until…
I’ll have to leave at…
B. Listening Exercise
Listening for General Understanding
1. What is this teleconference about?
2. Who do you think would be attending?
Listening for Detail
1. Who is the moderator?
2. Which two countries are mentioned?
3. What time of day is it in Sydney?
4. Why is the call being recorded?
5. What are the two presentations being made?
6. What is the third item on the agenda?
7. When can you ask questions?
8. What other rules are there?
20.

1. Introductions
.
C. Exercise
• You are organizing a teleconference about your product/service
• You are to write and practice your introducing statement
• There are members from the Tokyo office, the New York office and
the Singapore office attending
• The topic of this teleconference is to improve communication
between the offices
• The time is Tokyo: 9am, Singapore: 8am, New York: 8pm
• The teleconference time is 1 hour
• The agenda is:
1. Your manager will make a short presentation on his experience in
the London office
2. Kathy Lee from New York will make a short presentation on the
results of an employee survey on communication times
3. Reports from each office about their concerns
4. Action plan
21.

2. Checking Understanding
1. Checking Understanding
A. English Help:
1. Someone at a meeting says:
I think we should reduce our training budget.
2. Look at the different phrases you might say:
I didn’t catch what you said. Sorry. I don’t follow.
Could you say that again more slowly? What does “reduce” mean?
What do you mean by “reduce”? Sorry. What was that?
Could you slow down? Could you repeat that last part?
Remember to say one of these phrases if you want to interrupt:
3.
David, sorry to interrupt. David, may I interrupt please?
Excuse me David… David, sorry…
B. Exercise: Sort the phrases in (2) into the following groups:
When you haven’t heard what
they said
When you didn’t understand
When you didn’t understand the
word “budget”
When you haven’t understood
what they mean by “reduce”
When they have spoken too
quickly
C. Listening
Listen to your instructor and interrupt and check that you have understood
by using the phrases above.
22.

3. Summarizing/Paraphrasing
A. English Help
You can check understanding by summarizing and paraphrasing what
the speaker has said. You can just repeat what they have said or you
can paraphrase it (say it in your own words).
So…?
So you are saying…?
Are you saying…?
Am I right to understand…?
So you think…?
You can also refer back to an earlier part of the discussion:
To go back to…
Coming back to…
You mentioned…
B. Pair work
Choose three of the topics below and think of your opinion about them.
• Business trips abroad
• Long meetings
• Teleconferences vs. face-to-face meetings
• Your product/service
• Studying business English
Take turns with your partner saying your opinion, after you finish your
partner will check that they have understood and summarize what you
have said.
23.

4. Questions
A. English Help
1. You may be asked:
Let’s open it up to questions. Does anyone have any questions?
, what do you think?
2. During teleconferences, it is helps to ask specific questions:
Proposal: I think we need to reduce our staffing costs.
Questions: Are you saying that we need to cut wages and salaries?
Or are you suggesting that we stop replacing staff who resign?
Or do you mean we should make some staff redundant?
Remember to say the person’s name you are asking as well as your own name first:
David, this is Shimada…
B Pair work
1. Look at the following proposals and think of some questions to ask.
1. We need to improve our staff’s level of
English.
2. We need to improve our customer
service.
3. We should ban smoking at work.
4. We should have less managers.
5. We need to cut our overheads.
6. We have to cut our travel costs.
2. Now each take turns reading the proposals while your partner
interrupts with questions.
24.

4. Questions
C. Listening
1. General Understanding
Listen to three managers holding a meeting and discussing a problem they
are having.
• What is the problem?
• Why are they having it?
2. Listening for detail
Listen again and make a note of who did these things
D: Designer E: Engineer D/E: Both
• Changed the design
• Incorporated a smaller battery
• Moved a socket
• Couldn’t meet the new specifications
• Built the prototype
• Didn’t check that what they were doing was OK
3. General Understanding
Listen to part 2. What two options do they think about next?
4. Listening for detail
Make a note of the two options and complete the chart.
Options Advantages Disadvantages
25.

5. Commenting
A. English Help
1. You may be asked:
Do you want to add anything?
Is there anything anyone wants to add?
2. You could say:
I just want to add something to a point John said.
I think I should add…
I’d like to go back to… (referring)
3. Remember to use a clear structure.
Opinion Reason Example
B. Exercise
1. Look at the following phrases and put the following letters next to them.
S support a proposal O oppose a proposal
It’d take us over budget. It’d be easy.
It’d help us to… It’d mean we couldn’t…
It’d cause problems. It’d be difficult to implement.
It would be safe. It’d be cost effective.
2. Work with your partner and think of reasons that can help support and
oppose the following proposals.
a. Stop all overtime payments.
b. Have English lessons during work hours.
c. Have the weekly meeting in English.
d. Make all staff working on computers have a ten minute
break every hour.
e. Make all staff travel economy class on airplanes.
f. Let staff job-share and work flexi-time.
26.

6. Closing
A. English Help
Summarizing:
Let me summarize today’s decisions/points.
First,… Second,… Finally,…
Actions:
Could you send us a transcript/summary of today’s call?
Shall we schedule our next meeting for…?
Could you send out the agenda for the next meeting?
I’ll send out an invitation and agenda. Could you send me the
e-mail addresses of the participants?
Keep me informed.
Excusing yourself:
I’m sorry, I won’t be available for the next call.
I won’t be able to attend the next call.
Closing:
We have to go now.
Is that everything?
Let’s wrap this up.
Thank you all for attending.
B. Listening
Listen to Lisa Macey close her conference call and complete the following
chart.
Points Action Assigned to
C. Speaking
Now look at the notes you have taken from Exercise B and practice making
a closing statement with them
27.

7. Role Play
A. The Company
• You are the directors of a small smoked salmon company called
McCoy’s Farm based in Scotland.
• You have been producing premium quality smoked and marinated
salmon products for the past 20 years.
• You aims to produce and deliver the finest smoked Scottish salmon
in the British Isles.
• You produce salmon for the British Isles for the trade and also to
retailers through the Scotland Farm label.
B. The Situation
• You need to overhaul your marketing plan.
• You have invested in being able to increase production so you
need to increase product demand.
• Some of your products appear old-fashioned
C. Your Task
You are going to have a teleconference with other directors of your
company.
• Think of at least three proposals you can put forward to try and
improve the company’s product demand and image
1.
2.
3.
• Now choose the best proposal. You are going to present this
proposal during the teleconference
• Take good notes as you will be writing a group report as homework.
28.

Role Play: Agenda
McCoy’s Farm Conference Call Agenda
Date: Time:
Objective:
To decide on an action plan to overcome the following problems
Problems
• You need to overhaul your marketing plan.
• You have invested in being able to increase production so you
need to increase product demand.
• Some of your products appear old-fashioned
Introduction
1.
2.
3.
4.
Action
Closing
Notes:
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
29.

Role Play: Assessment
Good points
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
Points to work on
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
Study Plan
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
Notes
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
Homework
• You are to work with your group via e-mail and telephone (in
English)
• Together you are to write a report of the teleconference and your
decisions
• Please exchange contact details
• Due date:
30.