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For teachers - Talking Business
Talking businessTalking Businessis a series of short audio programmes which give expert advice and practical tips on how learners can improve their business English speaking skills, especially when they are speaking on the telephone, participating in meetings, giving presentations, or negotiating. We've created a bank of FREE downloadable worksheets to help you exploit the programmes in class.
Telephoning

Telephoning
Telephoning starts here:
covering aspects of telephoning including getting through, dealing with wrong numbers and making appointments and bookings.
 

ConnectingMessages
  • Worksheet (48 K)
  • Jumbled telephone dialogue: students reassemble the dialogue before, during or after listening
Wrong NumberAppointments
  • Worksheet (55 K)
  • Pronunciation: students listen to a telephone dialogue and mark the stressed words in each line
More activities
  • Worksheet (51 K)
  • Further ideas for ways to exploit the Talking Business Telephone module in class
Meetings

Meetings
Meetings starts here:
looks at speaking skills for business meetings including agenda setting, interrupting, agreeing and disagreeing and 'any other business'.
 

Agenda SettingInterruptions
  • Worksheet (45 K)
  • Interruptions game: one student has to speak for 3 minutes; the others have to interrupt him/her as often as possible!
Agreeing and Disagreeing
  • Worksheet (46 K)
  • Agreement / Disagreement Game: the student who uses the highest number of phrases of agreement and disagreement accurately is the winner!
AOB
  • Worksheet (48 K)
  • AOB Roleplay: one student chairs a meeting; the others have to try to extend the meeting with as much 'AOB' as possible
More activities
  • Worksheet (53 K)
  • Further ideas for ways to exploit the Talking Business Meetings module in class
Presentations

Presentations
Presentations starts here:
helping learners to improve their presentation skills.
 

Opening
  • Worksheet (52 K)
  • Spot the mistakes: students have to listen carefully to the audio text and correct the mistakes in the transcript
TipsMore activities
  • Worksheet (52 K)
  • Further ideas for ways to exploit the Talking Business Presentations module in class
Negotiations

Negotiations
Negotiations starts here:
helping learners to improve their negotiation skills.
 

Tricky Conversations
  • Worksheet (49 K)
  • Spot the mistakes: students have to listen carefully to the audio text and correct the 10 mistakes in the transcript
Resolving Difficulties
  • Worksheet (51 K)
  • Extra words: there are 10 extra words in the transcript that learners have to find and delete, either before, while or after listening
Dealing with Difficult Clients
  • Worksheet (53 K)
  • Jumbled conversation: students reassemble the dialogue before, during or after listening
More activities
  • Worksheet (57 K)
  • Further ideas for ways to exploit the Talking Business Negotiations module in class
More ideas

Still looking for things to do with Talking Business in class? Here are a couple of ideas for activities which require no preparation, and will work with almost any Talking Business programme.
 

1. Jumbled text: give the students the text from the Check Your Understanding section with the lines or sentences in the wrong order. Students re-order the text then read and/or listen to check.

2. Gapfill: give the students the text from the Check Your Understanding section, with gaps in place of key words. Students fill in the gaps then read and/or listen to check.

3. Error Correction: give the students the text from the Check Your Understanding section, with errors introduced into the text. Students try to correct the errors, then read and/or listen to check.


For these and more ideas for classroom activities, download this

list of teaching ideas (47 K).