A unique new author blog helps business communication instructors spend less time preparing and more time teaching. The first authors in the field to write an instructor blog, Bovée and Thill share instructional insights, offer advice on incorporating social media and other technologies into the course, and provide compelling examples of good and bad business communication.
Special: Podcasts
« Previous EntriesGetting Your Ideas Across in Meetings
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012Meetings are a great opportunity to present your ideas and become engaged in the decision-making process. Meetings often involve open-ended discussion among different types of people. For this reason, there is no easy formula that will guarantee success. Instead, you need to develop a range of skills and techniques that will help you express your [...]
Telephoning: Handling Inquiries and Technical Problems – Business English Pod
Friday, January 6th, 2012"In this Business English Podcast lesson we continue our series on making telephone calls in English by looking at how to deal with technical problems and clarify information using alternative choice questions. This questioning technique is useful when you need to clarify important information or reach a decision."
Telephoning: Leaving a Message – Business English Pod
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012"People are busy. When you telephone people, they often aren’t there to take your call, so you need to leave a message. And almost everyone has to answer the telephone and take a message sometimes. Doing so professionally leaves a good impression on your customers, colleagues and boss. Today we will hear a bad example [...]
Cold Calling: Dealing with Objections and Closing the Call
Monday, October 3rd, 2011This is the last in our three-part Business English Podcast series on cold calling. In today’s lesson, you’ll learn how to deal with several typical kinds of objections that a potential customer might raise. When Steve first asked for an appointment, Linda didn’t agree right away, did she? As you know, it’s normal for even [...]
Meetings: Brainstorming & Discussing Ideas
Wednesday, September 14th, 2011In this Business English Podcast lesson we take another look at the language used to suggest and discuss ideas in meetings and teleconferences. We’ll also provide further language for diplomatic disagreement and agreeing action points at the end of the meeting. The teleconference is run by Jim as a type of meeting called a “Brainstorming” [...]
Telephoning: Leaving a Voicemail Message
Tuesday, September 13th, 2011When you call someone but they aren’t there, often their voicemail “picks up” or answers the phone. Then you have to leave a message. Anyone who uses the phone in their job has to deal with voicemail. Have you ever started to leave a message on someone’s voicemail, then when you heard the “beep” sound, [...]
Meetings: Accepting and Rejecting Suggestions
Monday, September 12th, 2011This Business English podcast is the second part of a two-part series on making, rejecting and accepting suggestions. In the first episode, we looked at how to make suggestions. In this episode, we’ll cover appropriate ways to reject and accept suggestions. Accept means to agree to a suggestion and reject means to disagree. As you’ll [...]
Meetings: Making Suggestions
Friday, September 9th, 2011Today’s intermediate Business English Podcast is part of a two-part series on making, rejecting and accepting suggestions. In this episode, we’re focused on the language used to introduce your ideas and make suggestions. The dialog takes place at a sports shoe company called Stratos. You’ll be listening to Karen, a marketing manager, meet with three [...]
Meetings: Disagreeing
Tuesday, September 6th, 2011In the previous episode (BEP 28) of this 2 part series, we looked at expressing agreement. We practiced four ways of agreeing: Using standard phrases, using synonyms, giving an example and making a general comment. In this Business English Podcast, we’re going to focus on disagreement. We’ll learn different ways to disagree, from polite to [...]
Meetings: Agreeing
Thursday, September 1st, 2011This Business English Podcast episode is the first part in a two-part series looking at agreeing and disagreeing. In these two episodes, we’ll be practicing different levels of agreement and disagreement, from weak to strong. Appropriate agreement and disagreement is an important part of all meetings and discussions. In this ESL podcast we focus on [...]
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