Are you suggesting that ... ? ■ If I follow you ...

■ Are you implying that... ?

9) Agreement, consensus or compromise.

Hilary Rhodes is talking about how to deal with agreements and disagreements:

'It may be possible to reach agreementor to reach an agreementabout something, or at least come to a consensus:something that most people can agree with. It may be possible to compromiseor to find a compromise:an agreement where people accept less than they wanted at first. Or perhaps the differences are so great that there will just be disagreement. Something in particular that you disagree about is a disagreement.'

10) Concluding

Carla Eagleton sums up and brings the meeting to a close:

'Right. I'm afraid we're running out of timeso we're going to have to stop there. To go over what's been said,there is a disagreement about timekeeping and budgets in the design department. I've listened to both sides of the argument. Ithink Ican sum it upby saying that it's a problem of creativity versus control. I think you'll just have to agree to disagree. I'll let you know my decisionabout the solution to this problem by the end of the month. So unless anyone has anything else to add, I think that's it. Thank you all for coming.'

III. Language focus

1.

a. Explain what the following expressions mean:

cover sheet, get stuck, advise the sender,

illegible, send through, confidential information,

independent recipient, get through, destroy the fax.

Use a dictionary if necessary.

b. Kim Wang sends a fax to Stockholm. The person receiving the fax phones Kim. Read what is said, and complete the statements using expressions.

1) 'Swedish Paper Products here. We've received a fax from you to a company called Moda Fashions. Our fax numbers are very similar. There must be some mistake.'

Swedish Paper Products (SPP) are not the......................................, and so they tell the person sending the fax: they...................the....................

2) 'The designs you received are top secret. Please could you tear them up and throw them away.'

The information is....................Kim wants SPP to.................the fax so that no one else

can see it.

3) 'Don't worry. There's something wrong with our fax machine so we can't read it anyway, including most of the first page.'

The person can't read the fax: the fax, including most of the ................................is.................. .

c. Kim Wang sends the fax again, this time to the correct number. Complete the commentary, choosing appropriate forms of the expressions in brackets.

There were no problems when she...................(1 send again / resend) the fax. The fax .................. (2 send through / go through) perfectly: the paper........................ (3 not get stuck / not get through) and the machine.............................. (4 legible/jam). Kim did not have to ................... anything ................... (5 go through /send through) again. The fax was................... (6 legible/stuck) and Bertil could read it.

2. Abbreviations

Complete these sentences by explaining what the abbreviations printed in bold type mean. Use a dictionary if necessary.

1. Rd., St. and Sq. are short for.........................

2. #24 in the USA and No. 24 in Britain both mean.........................

3. On an envelope the abbreviations c/o, Attn.and P.O.B.mean.........................

4. You may see these in a report or textbook: e.g. or eg, i.e. or ie, etc.or etcand P.T.O. They stand for............. And you may also find these: cf. (compare), do. (ditto) andviz. (namely).

5. A British firm's name may be followed by picor PLC, Ltd, Bros or & Co. These are short for.........................

6. An American firm's name may be followed by Corp. or Inc.,meaning.............

7. In a printed text you may see these abbreviations:@ ¥ 3000 each, © 1989, Apple® and Macintosh™. They mean........................

8. At the end of an informal letter, you might add a P.S., in other words a.............

9. At the end of a formal business letter it's common to use the abbreviations c.c.and enc.or encl.,which stand for.........................

10. You might see on a letter or fax: ring me ASAP or RSVP, which means……………………..

3. Translate this note from the boss to a group of workers in an office, into full words.

Memo from:Mr. Richard Hedd (MD) To: All staff Date:3/5/06 Ref:04056/DC

May I remind you that all new lab equipment should be registered with Stores & Supplies, Room 354 (ext 2683). NB: new items must be notified before 1700 hrs on the last day of the month of purchase, i.e. within the current budgeting month. All a/c nos must be recorded.

Dick

4. Match the words with their definition

8.

a. Here are three telephone conversations. Choose the best word from the brackets to complete each sentence.

■ Pierre, I'm calling to see if you've finished the drawings.

O Yes, Marina. Do you want me to.............................them by fax? (e-mail/send/post)

■ Yes, please. Do you have our fax............................. ? (number/address/code)

O Is it 570 220?

■ That's it. Oh, and could you fax.............................the specifications as well? (my/me/mine)

O I'll.............................everything I've got. (fax/faxing/faxed)

■ That'll be great. Thanks.

O Bye, Marina.

15 minutes later

■ Pierre, it's Marina again.

O Ah, Marina. Did you.............................my fax? (accept/get/have)

■ Yes, but the drawings weren't.............................. (read/seen/legible)

O OK, I'll.............................them, (resend/refax/receive)

■ Thanks, Pierre.

15 minutes later

O Marina? Pierre here. Was everything OK?

■ The first ten pages were fine but then the machine.............................. (fixed/stayed/jammed)

O Ah, so you didn't get the specifications.

■ No. Can you send them.............................again? (through/out/around)

O No problem. Let's hope it works this time.

b. Complete each sentence using two words from the box below. There are two words that you don't have to use.

1 When you send a fax you must use the company's standard......................................................

2 You must be very careful when you send a fax containing..........................................................

3 If you are not the..........................................................of this fax, please phone 0207 271271.

4 If you do not receive all the pages, please.............................the..............................

9. Types of meeting

Match 1-9 with A-E

10. Study word combinations with ‘meeting’ and replace the underlined expressions with appropriate forms of the verbs in the text. In some cases, more than one verb is possible.

A meeting of the Tennis Club Committee was (1) organized for 1 March, but not everyone could (2) go to it, so it was (3) delayed until March 31. One committee member said that this was too late, so eventually we (4) moved it to March 15. The chairperson (5) was in charge of it very efficiently, and we decided on some new membership rules. Only one committee member (6) did not go to the meeting.

11. Read the sentences. At which type of meeting would you be most likely to hear each of these things?

1) I'm pleased to announce another good year for shareholders of this company.

2) I know this sounds crazy, but how about giving away 100,000 free samples?

3) Things in the sales department are getting out of control. We should all start making a real effort.

4) So, you think you can provide 10,000 a month at a unit cost of £4.90?

5) Have you heard? Suzanne is being fired: apparently her sales figures aren't good enough.

6) That's a deal then. Looking forward to working with you. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

7) Amazingly, we're ahead of schedule on this project.

8) I recommend to shareholders that you accept Megabook's offer for our company.

9) As you know, Megabook wants to buy this company. As chief financial officer, what do you think of their offer, Saleem?

12. Choose the best word from the brackets to fill the gap.

1) Can we.............................up a meeting for early next week? (arrange/set/agree)

2) I'm afraid I've got to bring.............................this morning's meeting to ten o'clock.

(up/along/forward)

3) Something came up so they.............................Monday's meeting till Friday.

(postponed/cancelled/fixed)

4) Anita is off sick so Michael will have to.............................the staff meeting, (charge/chief/chair)

5) I've got to.............................the meeting in Paris because my boss will be in Spain.

(go/attend/visit)

6) It's a very important meeting so make sure you don't.............................it. (miss/lose/avoid)

7) On Friday we have a meeting.............................our most important client, (of/with/to)

8) It wasn't really a meeting - just an informal.............................over coffee, (speech/report/chat)

14. Complete the extract from a meeting with the expressions in the box.

1.sort out this mess 2.lose $25,000 3. take the minutes 4. set a time limit 5.to business 6. cancel our regional sales conference

MIKE Well, let's get down ……… . I think our objective is pretty clear. We're here today to ……….We have to decide what we're going to do about the problems with our travel bookings.

PATTI Sorry, Mike. What problems?

MIKE It looks like we're going to have to ………and on top of that we're going to……or more. Now, I've another meeting at three, so I'd like to ……...Is that OK?

BILL Is anyone writing all this down?

MIKE Um, no. Harriet, can you ………please?

15. The statements below were made at a meeting. Write one word in the gap to complete each statement.

1) 'OK. It's nine o'clock so let's get down to ..........................., shall we?'

2) 'What is the ...........................of this meeting? What do we hope to achieve?'

3) 'I've ...........................this meeting to discuss our debt crisis.'

4) 'What are your ............................on this, Ali?'

5) 'It's perfectly ..........................to me that the decision has been taken already.'

6) ‘........................nobody wants to take a cut in salary, but we may have to.'

16. Read the texts and fill in the gaps with the words in the box

a.

Hi John,

I found the report that you ……… to your e-mail when I ……… to my computer this morning. I thought the report was great. I wanted to keep it, so I tried to ……… it to my hard disk. Unfortunately, I ……… on the wrong button and I ……… it instead! I tried to ……… the command, but that didn't work. So I ……… for it, but it just wasn't there. Could you send it again?

Many thanks, Rita

b.

Dear Rita,

I'm pleased you liked the report - but I'm afraid it wasn't mine. Caroline wrote it and .........it to me. I .........it to you because I thought you' d be interested. However, there's some bad news. When I tried to .........it .........just now I found that it had been .........from my computer too - it was gone! But don't worry -I .........a copy before that happened so I'll post it to you.

John

c.

FAX

To: Sonia De Soto

From: Patricia O'Learey

Date: 23.12.00

Dear Sonia,

I hope this fax ………successfully. I've had a terrible time trying to ………it to you. My fax machine was ………and ………your number for about three hours yesterday afternoon, before I decided that I'd had enough and ………it. What was the problem? Perhaps your machine had ………of paper? Or maybe you just hadn't put the paper in properly - you really should read the instructions about how to ………it. But, let's get down to business ...

d.

Who needs e-mail? If I want to send a message to someone, I write a letter, put a stamp on it and ………it. It's simple and cheap.

If I've got a package, I ………it and ask the post office to ………it for me. You can't do that with e-mail, can you? And if it's urgent I get a motorbike rider to ………it for me. Then I know for sure it will be ………safely. So I'll stay with snail mail, thank you very much.

e.

I hope you have all had a chance to look through the ……….I have the ………of our last meeting with me. Sorry they are so late!

You have all the ………for each item on the agenda in front of you. I'm going to ask Jane to ………the meeting, and I'd like to finish before lunch.

f.

MEMO

1. There will be a meeting of all staff next Wednesday at 9.30 to discuss our new security procedures.
2. The ……… of the security ……… is critical to our success, and it is vital that all stuff attend.

3. We need to agree a ………, and to make sure that our planning is completed ………. Please bring your diaries!

g.

Ask the Expert

Q: What is the secret of giving a good ………?

A:That's easy! You just have to remember ABC.

………- you must get your facts right.

………- keep to the point, and don't use ten words if you can use one.

………- make sure the structure of your talk is clear.

Oh, and make sure your ………laugh at least once.

17. Read the dialogue and match the idioms in bold with their meanings below.

-Right chaps. First of all, I'm delighted to say that our new soft drink is nearly ready to be launched. The boss told me that, as always, the name proved to be 1) areal bone of contention.Shane Jennings wanted to call it Fizzo and Jennifer Biles thought Joopy would be a better name. Apparently they 2) went round in circlesfor weeks without coming to a decision. Anyway, 3) in a nutshell,the board of directors preferred Joopy, so Shane backed down when he realised he was 4) fighting a losing battleand, consequently, it looks like it's going to be called Joopy. Well, you've all had several months to 5) rack your brainsfor some fresh ideas, so let's 6) put our heads togetherand decide on the packaging ... Sharon? Would you like to 7) start the ball rolling?

-Hmm ...

-Okay. Frank? What about you?

-Well...

-Come on folks! 8) Put your thinking caps on!We don't need the precise details just yet - just 9) the bare bonesof a concept so we'll have something to start from!

-I've got it! How about a pyramid-shaped green bottle with the name in big orange letters?

-I love it!

-That's innovative! Yes, let's do that!

-Hang on! Listen you lot, the Bango Company has just used that colour scheme on their new product. We're on good terms with them and we don't want to 10) rock the boat;they could get very upset if our packaging is too similar.

-Oh … I see … Let’s try again then …

a. to start a conversation/activity, etc

b. to start a conversation/ activity, etc

c. a sensitive issue that causes argument

d. the most basic/ important parts of sth

e. to argue about the same things repeatedly without reaching a decision/solution, etc

f. to start thinking about sth, especially problem/ difficulty

g. to discuss sth, especially in order to solve a problem

h. in few words

i. to struggle against sth with little or no hope of success

j. to think hard about sth in order to find a solution/an answer

b. Fill in the gaps with phrases from the list:

started the ball rolling, bone of contention, in a nutshell, going round in circles, racked his brains

1. I won't bother going into all the details, but, ………, we have to cut down on spending costs.

2. At the company meeting, the director ……… by asking if everyone was present.

3. The student………to find the right answer to the complicated question.

4. We kept ……..trying to decide what colour to paint the house but we just couldn't agree on anything.

5. Politics is a……..at home -it's a very sensitive subject as my husband's Labour and I'm Conservative.

c. Rewrite the following sentences using the words in bold. Do not change these words in any way.

1. "I don't understand you! Everything was going so well and then you had to go and spoil everything."

rock ……… .

2. We're way below last year's profit. I think we should meet to discuss the figures and find a way to increase our sales.

heads ……… .

3. The police inspector wasn't interested in details of the arrest; he just wanted to know the basics.

bare ……… .

4. Although the doctors tried hard to save the man, they knew his injuries were fatal.

battle ……… .

5. "I don't know what I'm going to do when I leave school. I guess I'll have to think about it carefully."

cap ……… .

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 2798