Business English for your work meetings and Zoom calls - English lesson

hi everyone welcome to the London School of English life this is our weekly series that allow you to improve your English and connect directly with our expert English language trainers today you will learn a lot of practical tips and very useful business questions for your work meetings and zoom calls learning how to feel confident speaking English during work events can take a lot of time and our goal today is to help you do it much faster so already after this session you can join your next zoom call at work and feel more comfortable expressing your opinion asking questions and interacting with your colleagues and partners for those of you who are new to our channel and our English learning community the London School of English is the place where you can improve your English so that you can really get ahead in your international career and in life you can learn excellent communication skills and gain confidence in our small groups where content is designed to fit your objectives you can find a range of courses we offer including business and professional English general English exam English IELTS on our website London School comm we are also excited to say that we will be reopening our Centre in London on the 31st of August so you can now study with us not only virtually but also in face to face classes and today I'm so excited to welcome back Linda's thoughts an expert in language trainer from our school who has a lot of experience in teaching business and professional English to international clients from around the world from France to Japan to Italy to Brazil to Spain and even Miami and we're also joined by Silvia Pina from our sales team who knows a lot about communicating in English with international clients and business partners so Linda and seal they are welcome great to have you here with us today and Silvia I know that even today you had a lot of meetings and zoom calls so you're taken communicating with international clients and partners in English yeah well I do you have meetings virtual meetings well obviously in the last few months they were all beautiful but but I do also get a lot of virtual meetings where things when life was normal and ah the meetings I have they very different you know I may have more informal meetings with my team and I have more formal meetings with some other partners or corporates interested in our courses so today I had an example of both of them so I had several meetings with my team and I had a very important formal meeting with a partner in Japan and increasingly was all about in fact promoting our new business and professional 25 course and they wanted to know exactly what was this 25 for so the explanation of you know the age range so we will be accepting this new course this them people as you know a professional as youngest 25 so the old presentation was quite interesting and it was in fact we were using a zoom as a as a platform and and I thought he went really well but interestingly I use some of the expressions that Linga will present today yes they're real the real live phrases yes take notes they're very useful so Linda back me ah first of all I went to welcome everyone who is watching us Ikki good evening ki and Tanya and nice to see you again good so let's begin so I just want to say due to the curve at 19 pandemic we're all having to do a lot more work online so virtual meetings and platforms such as zoom Skype teams etc are much more common and therefore the importance of effective communication is vital in order for a meeting to be managed successfully there are of course different types of meetings large formal meetings where you'll have a chairperson or someone leading the meeting and then of course less formal or informal meetings and of course meetings with customers or clients which won't be the same as a meeting with partners as it will naturally not be the same with colleagues or between departments in your organization in addition we have to consider how different cultures approach or hold meetings in terms of formality and the use of language so therefore the language of meetings will vary quite a lot I think the key is to be well prepared and of course because it's online be ready for lots of unexpected interruptions so as there's a wide range of language you could use I've divided the useful expressions into possible stages in a meeting so to begin in certain meetings you might be asked by the person chairing the meeting or leading the meeting to introduce yourself oh they might ask everyone attending to introduce themselves and in addition it's possible that you might have new people join in the meeting who need to be introduced in which case these expressions could be useful please join me in welcoming olga and sylvia i would like to introduce it's a pleasure to welcome so these are expressions that you could use for introductions well of course there are often technical issues when you are online a very good video that you could a youtube video that you could watch is Tripp and Tyler and it's a funny and you must look at the reality of what really happens on an hour in an online meeting so I suggest go and have a look at that just to give you confidence about the fact that things do go wrong and how to to manage that so some useful language for managing these online issues that come up could be something like this sorry but I can't hear or see you and then you might say can you see me or hear me now perhaps if you make some changes is that okay or better now sorry I can see you but I can't hear you I'm just going to log off and log in again could you give me a moment while I try to fix and then obviously you fill it in with whatever it is that you're trying to fix I'm going to switch off my video and see if that helps somebody might make a suggestion and say to you perhaps you could try closing your background applications it seems we have lost John of course it doesn't mean that he's disappeared but that he's disappeared on your screen you've lost John he suddenly disappeared off your screen in the meeting and then you could also say Jax screen has frozen I had that earlier this week when I was teaching his student and suddenly the screen went like that and I wasn't quite sure whether he was a bit confused or when he was thinking about something but in actual fact his screen was frozen I couldn't actually communicate with him when you have these kind of problems it might be useful to send a chat message in which case you could say I'll send Jack a chat message other polite languages but I'm sorry I'm having trouble hearing you I'm sorry I'm having difficulties with so moving on to opening or starting a meeting which usually is the role of the chairperson in the meeting so these expressions could be useful good morning or good afternoon everyone thank you for coming shall we begin so these expressions we looked at this in the last session about negotiations the use of these modal verbs that help us to sound far more polite and formal so another expression would be if we're all here let's get started or let's start the meeting shall we okay is everybody here who are we waiting for I think we'll make a start without them so for everyone's not there perhaps you might decide to go ahead I just like to say hello to Jeff Ron in eager LC veera apologies if I've missed out your name but those are the ones I could see at the moment just to welcome you and thrilled to have you here with us today so when we start the meeting it's quite important that you agree on the ground rules so ground rules would be contributions how do you want people in the meeting to contribute the timing of the meeting and the decision making process and this would probably be the chairpersons role to say these statements so things such as the meeting is due to finish acts of the preposition at and then whatever time we may need to vote on item 5 or if we can't get a unanimous decision we will have to take a vote we've got a lot to get through this morning or this afternoon so could we stick to the agenda please of the next process will be that you would want to state the topic or the agenda for the meeting to establish why the meeting has been held it's always useful to do this so everyone is clear about what's going to follow and you could say things like I've called this meeting in order to as everyone received a copy of the agenda of course no one's going to say no but it's a useful phrase to use there are three items on the agenda first of all secondly and finally so the first item on the agenda is the aim or purpose of today's meeting is to reach a decision on quite useful those expressions and be careful about those prepositions making sure that you're using the right prepositions of course a lot of the time in meetings you need to get input from people you want to find out their opinion you also want to encourage discussion and participation in those meetings so useful expressions could be what's your opinion on how do you feel about I'd like to get your feedback on what are your views on Jack can we get your input on could I just ask you now remember the use of just in this expression gives the listener the message that you are not asking them to deal with something difficult or time-consuming and that it's not going to be a problem so if I said could I just ask you I'm not feeling that I'm going to demand a lot of time and attention it means just I need to just ask you this it's not going to be a massive problem and then of course in meetings you often need to give your opinion so if you want to show that you feel strongly about something you could use these expressions I strongly believe that I'm convinced that I have no doubt whatsoever that otherwise you might simply say I think believe or feel that in my opinion I'm in favor of I believe our best course of action is those those those should work quite nicely when you want to react positively or negatively to other people's opinions ideas or proposals in other words language for agreeing or disagreeing which could be useful so for strong agreement you could say something like this I completely I totally agree of course if the opposite is true then you might say I'm sorry you remember in our last session we mentioned that I mentioned the use of the Surry softens bad news so you would say I'm sorry but I completely disagree this next expression I couldn't agree more now this expression is often confusing because of the use of the negative modal verb couldn't you might think it shows disagreement but if we look at the end of the sentence agree more it's clear that this person strongly agrees with you I couldn't agree more strong agreement of course if you don't agree you could say I'm sorry but I don't agree with that and gain the use of the softener I'm sorry I don't agree with that otherwise you were to say you're absolutely right good point I agree with you whole heartedly for those of you that don't know the meaning of this word wholeheartedly your homework since I'm a teacher so your homework is to go to an English English dictionary and look up the meaning of this word whole heartedly but it's a beautiful expression and it means you agree completely so otherwise you could use these expressions that's exactly how I see it negatively unfortunately nice language to soften unfortunately I see it differently I'm with Jack on this Jack's Abaza manis featuring all over the place I'm with Jack on this I agree if it's not that you agree I'm afraid nice softening language I'm afraid I can't agree with you on that remember that it's a bit too direct and impolite to say I'm afraid I disagree it's much better to use this other way to say I'm afraid I can't agree with you on that it sounds much softer and less direct when you partially agree with someone these expressions could be useful so I agree with you up to a point but so it means you agree with some of the things they've said but not all of them I agree with you up to a point but and the next one I agree with you in principle but and this means that you agree with the theory or the idea that the person's putting forward but perhaps you don't agree with the practice or the doing of it I agree with you in principle but and then of course during a meeting you want to show that you're interested and you're listening and you participating so language that could be useful to show interest I see oh really that's interesting I get your point I see what you mean of course the biggest problem when we're in meetings and especially these virtual meetings you're dealing with different nationalities different accents so when you want to ask someone to repeat what they've said these might be useful I'm afraid I didn't quite catch that sorry could you repeat that please and I'm sure I'm not sure I follow your point about I'm not quite with you that could be useful and then when you want to clarify what they've said you could say so let me check if I've understood you correctly are you saying that would be impossible or difficult another way to clarify is to say am I correct in thinking that we will be open in the school on the 31st of August yes we are opening on the 31st of August you have absolutely understood me correctly another option would be can you expand on that what exactly have you in mind did you have in mind another expression you are offering 20% now and then 10% on completion is that right so I think a lot of the time when people don't understand something that somebody said the natural default expression is I don't understand I don't understand and that's not really useful because what it does is it brings down your confidence because you're constantly saying it and it's it's not positive it doesn't build our confidence so I think in order to help you with your confidence it's probably much better to actually put to the person what what do you think you heard and for them to clarify if it's not correct remember that if you do understand it correctly it boosts your confidence and you feel so much better and it's just a much more useful way so I'll give it to you again you're offering 20% now and then 10% on completion is that right another useful expression for this category would be could you be a little more precise now we often use these softeners a little more precise it just sounds a lot better using these softeners or you could say could you be a bit more precise please perhaps I should make that clearer by saying and then you add in what you want to add so what you are saying is and again tell the person what you've heard it can also help them because if they feel that you're not getting what they're saying they might reduce or lower their level of English or speak slower etc so this this expression can help you with many things and then the final one in this category perhaps I'm not making myself clear what I mean is if you want to clarify something that somebody has misunderstood now this is a really important point and it's got to do with different cultures some cultures when you're interrupting have no problem with you just shouting and say in your point but in order to be polite in a formal diplomatic situation these these send phrases these expressions could help you can I raise the point here I'd like to come in here if I may and it doesn't mean that you want to open the door and come in or enter into some at the virtual room but it means that you would like to interrupts arguments again I'd like to come in here if I may can I come in here can I interrupt can I come in here actually while we're on the subject of adding your interruption whatever it is that you want to interrupt with and the final one in this category could I add something here these expressions are much more useful in gaining someone's getting someone's attention rather than shouting your ideas across of course the chairperson needs to control the meeting and make sure that everything's going accordingly and that the agenda the items on the agenda are adhered to so this these could be useful expressions if nobody has anything else to add let's move on to the next item this is a good one so when you want to make to notify the participants in the meeting that you're on a time constraint you could say something like we're running short on time or we were running out of time so let's move on I'd like to skip item two and go directly to item three can we move on to can we leave that until later and go on to of course sometimes you need to give control over to somebody else in the meeting and in this sense you could say I'd like to hand it over to Jack who is going to lead the next point so often in a meeting things get quite heated discussions go on during the meeting and very often things go off topic you have an agenda but you go off-topic and start talking about something else and this is where the chairperson needs this language to bring the discussion back to the main point and this could be useful I'm afraid that's outside the scope of this meeting I think we're getting off topic we'd better save that for another meeting so of course every meeting needs to be closed and there needs to be a summary so that everybody knows what they're doing perhaps the chairperson might nominate certain people who have certain tasks that they will need to do so closing or summarizing the meeting before we close let me just summarize the main points to sum up and also I will go over the main points shall I nice and polite a few last ones okay let's summarize let's sum up we have agreed to so it's quite useful to state what you have achieved in the meeting so we've agreed to or in conclusion or to conclude we have decided to and then whatever your decision has the decision that you've made very often in meetings you decide to meet on another occasion perhaps because not everything has been concluded and you could say our next meeting will be on the 25th of August so of course there if there's no scheduled exact meeting you could say I'll let you know the date of our next meeting of course you've now summarized but you need to finish the meeting and thank everybody so thank you all for attending thank you for your participation thank you for your time and this is my most favorite one thank you for a constructive and fruitful meeting such a positive ending to a meeting and that's it so that's it for me so any questions any things that anybody would like to to art let's have a look here let's move on to you thank you very much Linda and is for little glitches that you might see on the screen right now but we've got everyone joseph's made an interesting point he says there's yeah with cultural I chose a by the way there is a challenge with cultural approaches some countries or cultures have a style more direct others are more polite in my view it is better to be more polite to avoid any misunderstanding you're absolutely right Joe so as I was saying in the beginning of the livestream that we have to consider different cultures and different approaches and you're absolutely right some cultures are much more direct and to be safe and to be sure that you're not offending anybody or that you're not alienating anybody always go with the polite formal option 100% chose a yes yeah and in fact Sylvia we just just before we dive into the question Sylvia and Linda just wanted to call out a few names from our from our viewers and our English language community those people who joining us today we've got people who were already seen on many live streams for example Tanya welcome Tanya and ki and you Fran Allie there are so many of you it's really great to see you and also we've got people who are here with us for the first time so so welcome we see that there are senior are sensible is joining us for the first time and we've got I think he joining us for the first time mayor I can we see for the first time so that's that's Elsie Castro so all of you welcome it's really great to have you here yeah and just Linda it's great that you hold out the comp a comment from Jose because actually it seems that communicating in meetings is becoming more and more important for a lot of our viewers with commented we had comments from Kei and there are and dufranne who who is saying that they now after Corbett actually have many more meetings absolutely so lately yeah so Linda you mentioned some intercultural aspect Sylvia you worked a lot you work a lot with people from all over the world and different cultures some of them are direct some of them are indirect what's your experience with this and what would you advise to our English language community as well yeah I guess at the beginning well as I said I've always had a virtual meeting so I'm personally quite used to in some of the partners we work with are quite familiar with it but obviously since since the lockdown it was the only way of heavy meetings so I guess for many there was readjusting to to the difference after some reason you feel that the meeting is different before going live actually with Linda we were talking about the the lack of a body language and how sometimes not being able to see someone's body you may feel like whoo I'm not quite certain of of the person's of the person's reaction and I think once you adjust to that perhaps things get get easier but in terms of intercultural I guess those the the issues that Jose was raising that they happen whether he spiritual or or a face-to-face not so going in to a meeting as you correctly said if you do not know the part the people in there going with the idea of communicating in the most formal way is the best approach and then obviously it's much easier to relax once if you know if it is the case to do so also you know I think the we were talking about it earlier Olga and Sylvia about how you know a lot of this language you would use anywhere in meetings whether it's virtual or face-to-face but I think the key difference and I think we've all experienced that and I'm sure all of you who are watching are they will agree that there are so many issues that happen with technology that kind of creates a lot more stress during a meeting to keep it all together if you're the chairperson or even if you're participating screens get frozen audio cards you you lose you lose the connection you've got to come back into the meeting so I think the key thing really is that if you compare what we say effective communication is vital because knowing exactly how to communicate what's going on when these breakdowns happen and there are going to happen it's very it's a reality I think it's important to you to have that language so you can communicate effectively I think it is yeah I think you raise a really interesting point and actually what I noticed that virtually a meetings tend to be a little bit more much more on time more effective because you know thinks may may go wrong so you keep to the agenda so yes that because your timing is a slightly different when it times meeting can be interrupted with a cup of coffee a little chat in the maybe much longer whereas you know technical issues okay let me get to the point straight and direct assume well not direct in the negative F but yeah yeah yeah I agree so I um I'm all up for you fine because obviously I'm not having meetings but obviously I'm having I'm doing lessons and things like that which is not quite a meeting format but do you find that it's more intense online virtual I definitely yes I definitely have to be more proper I agree with you because there is the less destruction of the face-to-face where there as a second cup of tea or oh please come in or he feels different so I'm definitely need to be more prepared so you have your desk so in a way it's easier you have your monitor so is easier to manage your notes at least personally to manage my notes much better so if you have a good understand you know how to use certain platforms you can but yes I agree you definitely need to be I think more prepared yeah yeah and also I would imagine it's a little bit more intense because there you are you're facing on that screen for the whole period of that meeting and you know maybe if you're in a with you in an actual meeting you might look down at your notepad and you know maybe doodle a little bit so I write some notes or whatever it actually is but when you're on the screen you know a lot more intense you really need to would you agree with them yeah yeah I know everybody can see each of you so if you're looking down or for whatever reason you disappear from your from your box like that so that's very true yeah yeah I just want to call out a few more people that comment it it's so lovely to see our alumni commenting being it actually gets to see here and in fact we've got some more videos and this new video with it in it related to business and professional language and get a I remember it really well yeah everybody remembers yeah that's fantastic oh thank you so much yeah yeah Elizabeth masseur studied with us in 2018 that's really great to alumni and then we have new faces as well so we have moody low for LAN for joining us and then also we've got people from all over the world with a got you del your hair from Angola it's really good so just just another question because I'm pretty much mindful about the time but one of the very specific questions that came from Ricardo mmm there's a lotta Esquivel so Linda it's a language question focus and concentrate on I think we need yeah I think we need to be careful about that because you wouldn't in a meeting I don't know Sylvia how would you feel if I said solve it you need to focus on this it's a little bit too new it kind of gives the fit you calling out somebody and you're telling them in the meeting you've got to do this and I think culturally in terms of English culture it's not something that we would do because in a sense you're saying to the person you're not doing this and you better do it and that's something that probably we would the chair person or wherever is managing the meeting might have a private chat to somebody outside of the meeting and say you know I noticed that you know you weren't focusing or you need to concentrate etc I don't think that's necessarily something you would use in the meeting or do you have a different views of you know what there was some of the language you presented was and I don't know whether Ricardo perhaps meant that on you used the phrase stick let's stick to this point so perhaps the use of let's it makes it less to one person in particular please address to the open points very good let's focus on yes absolutely I think let's focus on ways to of the agenda and yeah yes it actually reminds me of another question that we had earlier I'm not sure if I can find it at the moment but this was about kind of the language divide between native English speakers and those for whom English is a second language so there's a lot of things that people don't really know about this this very kind of this intricate meanings of the words so Linda and Sylvia in your experience what is the best way to learn how to be more aware of those intricate intercultural aspects is this just practicing or is this something that people can learn in a classroom or what what would be your advice let's see Linda if we have the same opinion you go language wise in terms of culture I think it's quite important to do a course all you need to read up or do research about it but I think doing the course really does does help so a lot of the business courses that we do we talk a lot about culture and we talk we go usually go around in the room and you know we ask people how would you say if you were holding a meeting and then we look at how we would do it you know as in an English way and I think the other thing is too an intercultural course or participate in an intercultural course you know sometimes you can do a lot of these things on your own but in my experience not just with English language but with anything in life sometimes you get to a point where you actually do need to study or do a course in order to become a kind of a not quite an expert on it but to become more skilled or better at it and that's kind of my opinion yeah totally I I also think that obviously the the intercultural party to be better able to interact with whatever culture is also important to visit the place and to really get you know exactly and what I found personally and having travelled a lot but going with somebody who then pointed things out to me and make me notice like he would be for example a mini course that obviously helped so much so much more you know and you I was much quicker to interact with with local so yes so definitely you've definitely both so even I'm so linguistically if you deal a lot with with companies in the UK then coming to the UK it'll help you like alright okay now I understand better why they that why they're so polite you know how people interact also great just calling out more names more and more comments from Daniella F de Santiago Ricardo great to hear from you and we are just wrapping up so unfortunately I only have so much of the time but just before we do I I want to ask one more question from from Tanya and this question Linda Sylvia if you can just give just a few tips on on on what what can be done about this is Donny is asking us what do you do when you feel anxious in in meetings and for example speaking English in meetings is what would be your top two tips Linda and Julia put your two feet on the ground great idea put your hand here like that and just know that you're okay you're successful in your own right and don't worry about the English because as I've said before we're all human beings and we naturally want to help each other and support each other and if you just are confident as you've said before Tanya confidence is so important but I think the key thing is to stay grounded stay focused and just remember that you are successful without English of course with English you'll be more successful but don't let that trip you up and stop you from being the person that you normally are mm-hmm Thank You Linda the greatest tips I would say as a non-native speaker myself Tonya what I would do is really stop breathe and talk slowly absolutely key silver because he's actually very beautiful when people slow down and this is not a known native thing many native speakers and very good speakers actually slow down and that going a little slower gives your brain a little bit extra time to think better so really like a little breath and then speak slowly I think we're dumb would do nobody will say when you speak slowly oh my gosh English is terrible she speaks so slowly no I would like you to say wow her English is or his English is so good you can understand everything that they say absolutely right yeah fantastic thank you this this is these are really great tips and I think a good reminder for all of us too could have low speeds and just just believe in ourselves absolutely this so we need to wrap up but of course as always if you've got any questions about our courses or about how you can improve your English then don't hesitate to either contact us after the event at this email clients at London School comm or find out more about our courses whether that's business and professional English courses with general English courses at our on our website www.sceeto.com tent coming up for you so next week if you find that you have trouble with your telephone English skills then do put this in your calendar on Thursday at 5:30 London time Linda will be presenting her powerful advice on how to feel confident and at ease and relaxed in your telephone calls I look forward to seeing you all in and so Linda Linda Celia thank you very much for all of your contribution and thank you very much for all the comments and the wonderful question from from our alumni and from new people in our English learning community we hope to see you very soon and stay well stay safe and Linda I [Laughter]

Channel: The London School of English

Views: 13,457

Rating: 4.9767442 out of 5

Keywords: english lesson, english lessons, londonschool, london school of english, learn english, english class, english courses, english schools, learn english online, business english, business english conversation, business english lesson, work english, professional english, business english vocabulary, business english speaking, english for work, business english courses, engvid, engvid emma, zoom calls in english, video calls in english, zoom in english, zoom meeting in english

Id: 88IP39jovnU

Length: 46min 25sec (2785 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 09 2020