EN 2216 Fundamental Business English II

Business meetings (15/08 hrs)

  • 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 (15/07 hrs)

  • 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 youroffices and to make recommendations for improvement. These are the notes you have made. Write areport expanding the notes into paragraphs.

Advertisements and commercials (15/08 hrs)

  • Cut out your favorite advertisement from a newspaper. Prepare a short presentation covering the following points.1. Target customers, how it works in terms of promoting the product-attracting attention, arousing interest, creating a desire, encourage to take prompt action
  • Describe favorite TV commercials to your partner. Say why you think they are effective

Selling and buying products (15/07 hrs)

  • 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 (15/08 hrs)

  • 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/or phone her/him

Practical component (15/07 hrs)

  •  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