Main Lesson
Discussion
• How often do you have meetings?
• Do you enjoy them or find them boring?
• What’s been the worst meeting you have had?
• Have you ever had online meetings?
1. Words for Meetings
• Let’s get the ball rolling, we don’t have much time.
• We gotta think outside the box, or we’re done.
• Let’s go over the minutes from our last meeting.
• I think we’re out of time, so we’ll pick up next meeting.
2. How Would You?
1. You are late to the meeting. How will you politely join?
Answer
• Sorry for being late, everyone. Please go on, I’ll catch up later.
2. You don’t understand the point. How do you ask for clarification?
Answer
• I’m not sure I understood your point. Could you explain that again?
3. You want to give your opinion but someone else is talking. How do you interrupt politely?
Answer
• If I could just jump in for a moment, I think we should …
3. Practice Sharing your Opinion
Card 1
💬 Your colleague says: “We should have shorter weekly meetings.”
📝 Your opinion: You agree. You think shorter meetings will save time and increase productivity.
Card 2
💬 Your colleague says: “We don’t need to spend money on new software.”
📝 Your opinion: You disagree. You believe new software will save the team time in the long run.
Card 3
💬 Your colleague says: “Let’s organize a company sports day.”
📝 Your opinion: You like the idea because it will build teamwork and improve motivation.
Card 4
💬 Your colleague says: “We should all work from the office, not remotely.”
📝 Your opinion: You disagree. You think working from home helps with work–life balance.
Card 5
💬 Your colleague says: “Let’s cut the budget for training.”
📝 Your opinion: You disagree. You think training is important for skill development and company growth.
4. Practice Delivery
Mr. Smith, the CEO of a company, is opening a meeting.
Good morning, everyone! Thank you for coming here today. Please, make yourselves comfortable. Since we are all here, we can start the meeting.
The purpose of today’s meeting is to generate new ideas for our product marketing, in order to ensure that we stay at the top of sales. Mark, I would like you to write the minutes of this meeting. Please, take a look at the graph of our sales since 2009. As you can see, until the autumn of 2013 our sales were gradually rising. However, from the autumn of 2013 they have been decreasing little by little. I truly believe in the quality of our products, therefore, instead of lowering our prices, I would suggest rethinking our marketing strategy.
Our research has shown that our brand is still very famous, but people do not pay much attention to our advertisements nowadays. We need to find a different approach to attract our potential customers. So let’s discuss what can be done to improve the situation.
30 minutes later.
I think we’ve covered our main objectives for today. For the next meeting, I would like each of you to choose what you think is the best way to improve our marketing and make an analysis of it. Thank you all for your participation and see you next Thursday. Have a great day!
• Why was the meeting conducted?
• Why did the speaker suggest changing the strategy?
• What did Mr. Smith ask attendees to do for the next meeting?