Business communication Students work in pairs or small groups and talk about
what they normally do in the situations listed, e.g. Do
they first send an email? Do they call someone’s personal
assistant? Do they consider the time zones involved?
Do they check if any software updates are necessary?
Then they should choose the situation that is the most
complex, write down every step they go through in detail
and then share this information with other students.
Discussion In pairs or small groups, students discuss the first set of
questions. Hold a short, whole-class feedback session
afterwards. Then hold a group discussion about these
more general communication questions. Do the students
have similar or different opinions?
Webquest In the article, the author says that her ‘face contorts into
a Munch-like Scream’ at the thought of someone simply
just stopping by to visit a friend without announcing
their intention to do so first. The students find an image
of Edvard Munch’s 1893 painting, The Scream, and
decide what kind of emotions they think the figure in
the painting is portraying. Then, keeping these emotions
in mind, they should say what, at work, makes them feel
like the person in the painting.
Level: Upper intermediate–advanced
Time: 90 minutes
Summary: This lesson is about how our
ways of communicating have changed over
the past few years, as a result of electronic
communication
.
In this lesson,
s
tudents:
1. study a text about how communication
has changed;
2. write out a step-by-step procedure for
communicating in a business setting;
3. discuss how they prefer to communicate
with various groups of people.
Materials: One copy of the worksheet
per student
Group size: Any
