B USINESS E NGLISH professional                                
Business skills 1
Debbie Barton,
Jennifer Burkart
and Caireen Sever
ask some questions and
suggest some solutions,
especially for those new
to business English.
• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 46 September 2006 •
Meetıngs
B
usiness English learners
almost always ask for help
with meetings, but this huge
area can mean anything from
a quick chat over the photocopier to an
AGM, so where do we start when faced
with teaching ‘meetings skills’?
Diagnosing the problems
One of the first things to do is to find
out what problems the learners feel they
have. Typical comments from our
learners in Germany include:
● ‘I can’t understand what people are
saying.’
● ‘By the time I’ve thought what to say,
everyone is talking about something
different.’
● ‘I’m the boss, but my English isn’t as
good as some other people’s so I won’t
say anything.’
● ‘I just don’t sound as clever as I do in
German!’
From these comments we see that lack of
vocabulary (both business and general)
and lack of confidence are important
difficulties. An inability to speak at
length, to hold the floor (dealing with
the inevitable interruptions) and to
develop an argument are also problems.
And, of course, weak listening skills.
Lack of vocabulary
(both business and
general) and lack of
confidence are
important difficulties
Finding solutions
So where next? Here are some typical
questions teachers ask when faced with
teaching meetings for the first time and
some suggestions of ideas to help.
There is so much to teach.
What aspects of the skill
should I focus on?
Firstly, it is important to check that you
know, in detail, about what your
learners are actually doing in meetings.
This is best done well before the
meetings lesson. Important points to
cover include:
1 the role the learner has in meetings, ie
participant or chair.
2 what type of meetings learners have,
eg formal or informal, face to face,
conference calls, video conferencing,
decision-making or information
sharing.
3 the nationalities and the number of
participants attending the meetings
the learners typically have.
4 the format of these meetings, eg
regular meetings or one-offs, meetings
with colleagues or with customers.
Different methods of collecting this
information can be used, including an
initial needs analysis, questionnaires, a
Q and A session or mini-presentations.
This information, combined with
the learners’ level and their perspective
of their problems, will give you a firm
foundation on which to base your
selection criteria. You can then choose
which fixed phrases to teach, for
example In my opinion ... What do you 
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 B USINESS E NGLISH professional                                
Business skills 1
Meetıngs
 think? Shall we move on to the next
point? There are lists of these in most
coursebooks which deal with meetings.
In addition, we have found that
plenty of practice in checking and
clarifying language is vital, especially
when learners take part in telephone
conferencing. A successful approach is to
pre-teach fixed phrases (eg Sorry, could
you repeat that, please?), and to practise
them in information-gap activities.
A participant is
much more likely to
interrupt a colleague
than their boss,
and some nationalities
find interrupting
more acceptable
than others
It is also immediately empowering
to give learners the language for, and
practice in, interrupting and dealing
with interruptions. Such input needs to
be kept within the context of the
learners’ own meetings, so the
information you have already found
out, ie who is in the meetings, what their
purpose is, etc will be vital here. A
participant is much more likely to
interrupt a colleague than their boss,
and some nationalities find interrupting
more acceptable than others. You need
not only to teach useful phrases (eg
Sorry, could I just interrupt you for a
moment? Please let me finish) but also to
discuss when and if this behaviour is
appropriate.
If learners attend international
meetings, it is important to cover other
aspects of cultural awareness. This
involves learners analysing their own
meetings behaviour in areas such as
participation, conflict management,
attitude to time and decision-making.
At a language level, if dealing with
native speakers, learners will also need
40 • Issue 46 September 2006 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •
to become aware of ‘diplomatic’
language. A good approach is to use a
card-matching activity where direct
language (‘You’re wrong!’) is matched
with indirect language (‘I’m afraid that’s
not quite correct’). Follow this with an
analysis of the elements of diplomatic
language, eg the use of softeners, and a
practice simulation. Although some
learners will be unable to change their
discussion style, such input should help
to improve their understanding of native
speakers. Looking at other factors which
make listening to native speakers
difficult, for example connected speech,
ie linking words together and weak
forms (I will becomes I’ll in speech), is
also beneficial.
How can I best input
new language?
Using framework materials to check
what your learners already know or use,
before inputting new language, is a
good way to start. This could look
something like this:
Checking and clarifying
1 Add at least one phrase to
each box:
Checking Did you mean that ...
what
someone
has said
Asking
someone
to repeat
what they
said
Clarifying
what
someone
has said
2 Check the phrases with
your teacher.
An important
point to remember
is to give learners
time to plan before
any speaking
activity
When teaching new language, remember
to put the phrases you are teaching into
a relevant context, preferably using
recordings of authentic language. There
are increasing numbers of these in
coursebooks or you can make your own
or download from the internet. Make or
find a tapescript so the learners can
listen and highlight the key functional
phrases they would like to learn.
Now I’ve given them the
language, how do I get my
learners to practise it?
Let your learners choose the phrases
they want to practise. They can then
write each phrase on an index card and
‘play’ the card during a discussion or
roleplay. You can monitor to ensure that
the language is used appropriately,
including the correct intonation and
stress patterns.
An important point to remember is
to give learners time to plan before any
speaking activity. By doing this regularly,
you can show that planning before a
meeting (using the agenda to brainstorm
possible vocabulary and phrases they
might need or hear) is invaluable.
Unless your students write the
minutes for meetings, the skills
necessary for participating are speaking
and listening, so any work on fluency
and listening skills (both for detail and
gist) will help the learners in meetings.
There is so much material out
there – what if none of it is
appropriate for my students?
You can get the learners to make their
own agendas based on meetings they
have had or are planning to have. This
provides them with the opportunity to
rehearse their arguments and thus helps
them to overcome problems of lack of
B USINESS E NGLISH professional                                
fluency and vocabulary before getting to
do it for real.
If you video them roleplaying a
meeting, you can use the recording for
peer feedback, self-evaluation and to
practise listening skills.
When planning new programmes
with learners, you can set up a situation
where they discuss and agree the
content together, once again practising
their discussion and listening skills.
Remember, the more you can find
out about your learners and the jobs they
do every day, the more realistic you can
make the materials you provide for them.
How should I give feedback
and what should I focus on?
Feedback forms are a good idea as they
mean that you don’t interrupt during an
activity. You complete one as a roleplay
meeting goes on, focusing on accuracy,
appropriacy, pronunciation and general
communicative competence. Positive
feedback as well as areas for
improvement should be included. It is
The more you can
find out about your
learners and their jobs,
the more realistic you
can make the materials
you provide for them
also possible to give the responsibility
for completing the feedback form to a
learner: it develops their listening skills
and overcomes problems if a learner
does not wish to participate in the
actual roleplay. Depending on the stage
of your lesson, however, you might
want to correct immediately, especially
during controlled practice.
An alternative approach is to ask
the learners what they want feedback on
and focus your attention on these areas.
And what about reviewing
all this language?
Make sure that there are lots of
opportunities for discussion in your
lessons. This will help the learners
increase their fluency, gain more
• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 46 September 2006 •
BUSINESS SKILLS 1: MEETINGS
After your next meeting in English, make notes about the following:
1 What went well? For example:
● I understood.
● I gave my opinion.
● I checked when I wasn’t sure what someone had said.
●
●
●
●
●
2 What areas do I still need to work on? For example:
● Interrupting
● Structuring my argument
●
●
●
●
●
Bring this to your next lesson and discuss with your teacher.
confidence speaking English and will If you include this type of activity
give them the chance to use their new as part of feedback, either in the middle
language. or at the end of a course, it will help
Encourage your learners to use their your future planning. It will also inform
functions cards (ie those they prepared you, the learners and their company of
in the input stage) regularly in meetings the progress they have made and the
back in the office as well as in success of the strategies you have used
classroom discussions. in teaching meetings. ETp
As part of a review, video the
learners and get them to complete a
self-evaluation form. The added pressure
of being filmed can go some way to
replicating the pressures of a real meeting.
How can I ensure that
learning is taking place, that
the learners are transferring Debbie Barton, Jennifer Burkart and Caireen
Sever work for Linguarama Spracheninstitut,
this learning and improving Düsseldorf, Germany. They have a wide
experience of teaching business English
their performance back in including areas such as production, retail,
finance and human resources. As well as
the workplace? teaching, all three are actively involved in
teacher training.
As well as getting learners to prepare for
DHorsley@compuserve.com
meetings regularly and to make use of
joergpohlmann@tiscali.de
their functions cards, give them a task
caireen@sever.com
like the one in the box above.
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