Business meetings: getting your point across

With this intermediate Business English lesson plan students will learn how to organise and present their ideas during business meetings in order to get their point across and convey their message effectively. They will watch a short video, learn useful phrases, practise with different role play scenarios, and learn expressions with “point”. You can combine it with the lessons:  “Communication styles: Assertive vs aggressive“, “Why debates turn into arguments“, “Giving and receiving feedback“, “The art of listening“, “Presentation skills: hooking the audience”, “Phrasal verbs: communication”, “Phrasal verbs: negotiations”, “Phrasal verbs: presentations”, and “Idioms: giving news and updates”, “Phrasal verbs: convincing and persuading”.

The lesson starts with a discussion about business meetings, sharing your ideas during business meetings, and getting your points across.

Listening: Students watch a video “How to make clear and concise points”, which shows a simple and straightforward method (called PREP method) to effectively convey your message, and complete 2 tasks.

Functional language: Students look at different phrases used to make a point, give reasons, give examples, and summarise a point, and put them in the correct category. Next, they analyse 3 examples and identify the parts that correspond to each part of the PREP method.

Speaking: Students are given 3 scenarios and are encouraged to role play 1 or more of the scenarios in order to practise making points and sharing their ideas.

Vocabulary extension: Students learn expressions with “point” (e.g. see the point, make a good point, point taken, get your point across). To practise, they complete 7 short dialogues with the correct expression.

Speaking: Finally, students discuss 5 questions in order to further practise the expressions with “point”.

You can use the conversation cards to review and practise the target language from this lesson.