Etiquette of telephone business talks

It is considered, that the most simple in business dialogue – telephone conversation. Actually it is far from being so. It calls by phone should as to submit to requirements of brevity, as business correspondence and sending of a fax.

One interesting feature of so-called ‘telephone English’ is that a relatively small number of very simple words can be strung together in many different combinations to make fixed expressions. You should be able to make at least 25 expressions – some very basic, others quite complex grammatically with a number of direct and indirect objects.

Well, nowadays, most routine business is done by e-mail. The phone is simply not an efficient way of handling this. So when the telephone does ring there’s usually a problem on the other end of it: an unexpected delay, a change of plan, a technical hitch, a missed deadline, a piece of bad news. Less commonly there’s an opportunity: an offer, an invitation, a useful lead. Either way, if it’s urgent, you phone. Teachers may find it more interesting, therefore, (especially with higher level learners) to adapt meeting roleplays to telephone practice. Certainly, these will give their students more to get their teeth into when discussed on the phone. But if these prove too complex, a basic dilemma scenario will often suffice. For example:

SpeakerA You’re already a month late with a project report and now need an extra 6 weeks to complete it. The project is your baby and your chance for promotion. You’re very protective.

Speaker B Speaker A is a month late with a project report. Phone them and suggest bringing in someone else to help them finish it if they can’t complete it within the next 2 weeks.

With skeleton rolecards like these, however, you may find it helpful to let learners flesh out their roles a bit before they start. They could also grade each other for diplomacy and assertiveness at the end of the activity.