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BEP 190 – Getting Your Ideas Across in Meetings (2)

Business English, Communication, English for Meetings /

English Meetings - Expressing your Ideas 2

This Business English Pod lesson is the second of our three-part series on expressing your ideas clearly and tactfully in meetings.

Meetings are a great opportunity to present your ideas and become engaged in the decision-making process. Meetings often involve open-ended discussion among different types of people. For this reason, there is no easy formula that will guarantee success. Instead, you need to develop a range of skills and techniques that will help you express your ideas clearly and tactfully.

In our last episode, we looked at giving, supporting, and contradicting opinions. In today’s lesson, we’ll cover more techniques of agreeing and disagreeing. We’ll also learn how to change the scope of a meeting, which is an especially important skill for the chairperson.

Last time, we heard four managers – Alison, Stewart, Pat, and Nate – discussing how to reduce travel and transportation benefits. Today we will continue that dialog. The situation becomes a little more heated as the participants express their ideas with more force.

Listening Questions

1. What does the CEO of the company want to focus on?
2. How does Alison respond to Stewart’s ideas?
3. What does Nate think about Stewart’s ideas?

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BEP 189 – Getting Your Ideas Across in Meetings (1)

Business English, Communication, English for Meetings /

English Meeting Phrases

This is the first in a three-part Business English Pod series on getting your ideas across in meetings in english.

Meetings are an important part of most people’s jobs. And doing well in meetings requires very effective communication skills. You need to make sure you are getting your ideas across clearly with the right amount of subtlety and tact. If you do this well, then you will be able to influence people and the direction of the organization you work with.

So, how can you get your ideas across with tact and clarity? That’s what we will look at in this lesson. We’ll cover some important ways of giving opinions of differing strength. And we’ll learn about supporting and contradicting other people’s opinions.

In today’s dialogue, four managers are meeting to discuss ways of saving money on travel expenses. The chair of the meeting is Alison. The other participants are Stewart from sales, Pat from HR, and Nate from marketing. We’ll hear the group express a variety of opinions as they discuss how to cut 15% from the travel budget.

Listening Questions

1. What are three things that Pat mentions could be cut?
2. What does Pat think they should focus on?
3. Why does Stewart disagree with Pat?

Premium Members: PDF Transcript | Quizzes | PhraseCast | Lesson Module

Download: Podcast MP3