CONVERSATION – BUSINESS ENGLISH

ELEMENTARY

1. What’s your name?

2. Where do you work?
3. What do you do there?
4. What does your company produce? / do?
5. Do you work for (name of the company)?
6. Does your company import anything?
7. What does it import?
8. Does your company export anything?
9. What does it export?
10. Does your company develop any products?
11. What does it develop?
12. What’s your office phone number?
13. What’s your personnel phone number?
14. How employees are there in your company?
15. What’s the price of your company’s main product or service?
16. Does your company have offices in different countries? Where?
17. Do you always work in the same Office?
18. What places do you visit for your job?
19. Where is your main Office?
20. What type of correspondence do you use in your job?
21. How many hours a Day do you spend on correspondence or paperwork?
22. Do you write letters at work or you always write e-mails?
23. How many e-mails do you receive a day at work? Are they always necessary?
24. Do you prefer to telephone or e-mail to...?
25. ...arrange a meet? Why?
26. ...solve a problem? Why?
27. ...find out information? Why?
28. When was your last meeting?
29. Where was it?
30. What did you talk about?
31. Was it interesting?
32. Was it really necessary?
33. About your last meeting... were many people there?
34. Who were they?
35. Were there lots of questions?
36. What did you decide?
37. Were there things you disagree?
38. How do you apologize in these situations?
a. You were late for a job interview.
b. You didn’t book a hotel for your boss.
c. You didn’t mail na order.
d. You didn’t remember your colleague’s birthday
e. A customer didn’t receive a delivery

Describe your last trip/business trip: (39-48)

 39. Where did you go?
40. How long did the trip take?
41. When did you leave/arrive?
42. What was the meeting/conference about?
43. Who did you meet?
44. What was the best and the worst thing about this trip?
45. What hotel did you stay?
46. Did you like it?
47. Did you enjoy the food?
48. Did you like the city? The country?

PRE-INTERMEDIATE

Describe the last conference that you went (49-54)

49. What was it about?

50. Did you meet many people?
51. Did you close any business?
52. Did you meet people that can help you grow your business?
53. How many departments does your company have?
54. Can you name them?
55. What does your department do?
56. Describe in details what “Marketing” “Logistics” and “Finance” do?
57. What is difficult about working in the Production/ Sales/ Customs Service
Departments?
58. What qualities are necessary to do your job well?
59. Tell me about your skills and experience.
60. What skills would you likę to improve?
61. What are some courses you are interested in taking?
62. Are you working on any interesting projects at the moment?
63. Tell me about the goals and deadlines of your projects.
64. What departments are involved in this project?
65. What are your responsibilities in this project?
66. What time do you start work?
67. What time do you finish your job?
68. What do you need to change to have a more productive day?
69. Do you work on weekends?
70. Do you work in a competitive industry/business?
71. Who are your competitors, locally and globally?
72. Where are they?
73. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your business?
74. Evaluate your company/business. Discuss which categories are important for you and
your competitors: Price, Delivery Time, Staff, Choice and Range, Technology, Quality,
Services, Location
75. Do you usually work alone or in a team?
76. What are the advantages and disadvantages of working in a team?
77. When you make a decision do you ask others for an opinion?
78. Do you have your best ideas on your own or with others?

INTERMEDIATE

Business Ethics (79-89)

 79. What do you understand by the term “business ethics”?
80. Can you think of any companies or business that would be considered ethical or
unethical? Which ones?Why?
81. If you received a very good salary would you be prepared to work for a tobacco
company or for a company which damaged the environment?
82. What would you do if you discovered that your company was stealing vast amounts of
client and government money?
83. Is making money the only thing a company should be concerned about?
84. If not, what else should companies be concerned about?
85. Is there a particular company that you would like to be a part of? Why?
86. Is there a particular company you would definitely not want to be a part of? Why?
87. Would you prefer to work in a large international company or a small local company?
Why?
88. Which type of company do you think treats their staff better? - small family companies
or big international ones?
89. How would you feel if your company asked you to move to a different country to help
your career?

Corruption (90-94)

90. Corruption can exist at many levels in a society. A corrupt policeman may accept a
bribe to ignore an offense. Which forms of corruption, if any have you seen?
91. How much corruption do you think there is in your country?
92. Do you think there is more or less than in other countries?
93. What type of government do you think are more likely to be corrupt-democracies or
dictatorships? Why?
94. If corruption is a problem in a country, how could it be reduced?

Monopolies (95-97)

95. Are Monopolies a good thing?

96. Are government monopolies accepted but private ones not?
97. What do you think of cartels (situations where a group of independent companies
works together to control the market)?

Customer service (105 – 104)

98. Can you think of any companies with good or bad customer service?
99. What is good and what is bad about their service?
100. What reputation for customer service do internet service providers
and telephone companies have in your country?
101. 108. If you have a complaint about a company, how is it usually
received in your country?
102. Have you ever written a letter of complaint to a company?
103. What was the result?
104. When you are using a company's customer service, what do you
expect from them?

Own Business

105. Do you run your own business, or would you like to do so?
106. What are the advantages and disadvantages of being your own boss?
107. If you are presently self-employed, why did you decide to do so?
108. What business will do well during the recession?
109. What business will have the most problems during the recession?
110. what is a pyramid scheme?
111. Are They legal in your country?