EN 2111: Business English II
Business meetings
· Discuss different
types of meetings: informal / formal, large group / a meeting of 4-5 of the
people involved/one-to- one meeting
· Types of activity:
Look at the problems and decide what kind of meeting is the best way of dealing
with each one, e.g. 1. The board required a report on your department’s
long-term plans over the next 10 years, 2. There is to be a company picnic next
month and everything has to be planned and organized. You are a participant of
the meetings discussed above. What would you say: to express your point of
view, make objections, ask for opinion, to end a meeting?
Writing reports, summaries, notes
· Summarizing a
business conversation: discuss different ways of summarizing,
· Listen to a
conversation recording of a meeting between two people. Answer questions based
on it. After understanding the conversation, draft a summary
· Using notes to
write a report
e.g. Your managing director has asked you to
investigate the health and safety provisions in your offices and to make
recommendations for improvement. These are the notes you have made. Write a
report expanding the notes into paragraphs.
Advertisements and commercials
· Cut out your
favourite advertisement from a newspaper. Prepare a short presentation covering
the following points. Target customers, how it works in terms of promoting the
product-attracting attention, arousing interest, creating a desire, encourage
to take prompt action
· Describe favourite
TV commercials to your partner. Say why you think they are effective
Selling and buying products
· Simulation:
- You work in the buying department of your company.
Decide at what terms, price, condition, etc. you are prepared to buy a product,
make notes, negotiate with the seller
- You are the chief buyer for a company. Find out
from a salesman the following;
About a product: wholesale price, recommended
retail price, how quickly the goods can be shipped, how each item is packed,
where the produce is manufactured,
· Procedure: Look at
the new words in a dictionary. Practice the necessary expressions. Write the
necessary notes before enacting the situations
Travelling on business
· Making
reservations-flights and at a restaurant. Speak over the phone, send a fax
· Meeting or being
met: role play- e.g. a foreign business person arriving at the local air port
and the other person is waiting to welcome him. Role play: the whole scene up
to leaving the airport.
· Write a list of
advice which might be given to foreign visitor.
· Tell a visitor
about office routines in our country: working hours, holidays, relationships
between the boss and employers, recreational and sport facilities for staff
· Arrange a program
for an important visitor who is coming to your firm to meet other officers. 1.
Make a telephone call to colleague in another department, inquiring whether you
can bring the visitor to see him/her, 2. Write a memo asking your boss to give
the visitor a brief explanation of your firm’s activities, 3. Draft a fax to
the visitor informing the date and the time you propose for the visit / phone
her / him
Practical component
· Design a
questionnaire to be used to interview persons in a company / hotel.
· Collect
information about their work, daily routine, etc
· Present your
findings to your colleagues Organize the information and write a report
