Topics to teach:
Topic Levels
- Elem: Elementary
- Low-Int: Lower-Intermediate
- Int: Intermediate
- Upp-Int: Upper-Intermediate
- Adv: Advanced
One of the good things about teaching meeting vocabulary, is that many of the phrases can be used in numerous other situations as well (e.g. agreeing and disagreeing phrases).
Although you can teach most of the below topics to any group of business students, I would only teach the starting and finishing a meeting topics to those who have to run meetings.
I would always start by teaching them (or reviewing) Basic Meeting Vocabulary. After that, the order of which you teach the other topics is upto you.
I personally wouldn't teach meeting vocabulary to students below lower/pre-intermediate level.
- Basic Meeting Vocabulary: Low-Int or Int
The names of the different parts of and material used in meetings. - How to Agree and Disagree: Int or above
Phrases used to agree and politely disagree. - How to Confirm and Clarify Information: Upp-Int or above
Phrases used to both ask people to repeat or confirm something and how to explain something in a different way. - How to Interrupt and How to Respond: Int or above
Phrases to politely interrupt somebody and how to respond if somebody interrupts you. - How to Express Probability: Int or above
Common phrases used to express different levels of probability. - Business Decision Making Phrases: Upp-Int or above
Phrases used to persuade others to support decisions. - How to Apologise for Being Late: Int or above
What to say when you are late to a meeting and when to say it. - How to Turn Down a Meeting: Int or above
Vocabulary to politely inform somebody you can't attend a meeting (either by email or phone). - How to Start a Meeting: Upp-Int or above
Vocabulary used to start a meeting which you are running. - How to Finish a Meeting: Upp-Int or above
Vocabulary used to finish a meeting which you are running.
Teaching the vocabulary
As the majority of the students will have attended meetings before, they will know the vocabulary in their own language. For me, the best way to teach this type of vocabulary is to use specially written texts. Use text exercises where they have to work out the meaning of vocabulary themselves from the context (better for understanding and remembering).
Practising the vocabulary
Apart from Basic Meeting Vocabulary, I would recommend that for all the others topics stated above that you get the students to practise the vocabulary through doing group role play exercises. Give your students details of what the meeting is about, what they have to do and what roles they have.
You can use a normal business meeting situation if you want, but I find it works better if you give them a silly situation (e.g. a meeting of politicians or football players etc...). Also give the students extreme roles. They get more into the roles they play then and use the vocabulary more.
With Basic Meeting Vocabulary, use photos of a meeting (either from images on the Google search engine or by bringing in photos) and get the students to both name and describe what they see.
