Idioms: giving news and updates

With this Business English worksheet, students will learn and practise 12 idioms about giving news and updates. It can be combined with other Business English worksheets, such as “Phrasal verbs: communication”, “Idioms: probability and likelihood”, “Phrasal verbs: Project management”, “Phrasal verbs: Presentations”, or “Phrasal verbs: Business meetings”.

The first 7 idioms (e.g. give you the lowdown, keep someone posted/in the loop, give a heads-up) are introduced through a short dialogue. Students read the dialogue and match the idioms to their definitions. To practise, students imagine they are talking to a colleague, and complete 4 sentences with their ideas.

To learn the meaning of the rest of the idioms (break the news, get the word out, keep in the dark), students match sentences with similar meanings.

To practise all of the idioms, students first complete a multiple-choice task, and then they complete 5 short dialogues with the correct idioms.

The last 2 activities are focused on speaking. First, students role-play 3 different situations. Finally, they create a dialogue in which they give updates on the progress of a project they are working on.

Use the conversation cards for more speaking practice!