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This is a review of the previous four lessons which revolve around formalities and short interactions.
Warm Up
Recall the previous lessons:
- Thank yous
- Apologies
- Offers
- Requests
Were any of them more difficult than you expected? Or easier?
This section is a bit of a grab bag of short interactions and formalities. Most students will have had trouble with apologies.
You don't need to review any language here. Just take a moment to think about how much study is involved in making a good impression every time you interact with a native speaker.
Practice
Quickly and naturally react to these situations. Make sure you are polite to clients and friendly to colleagues.
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You see your newly hired team member having trouble formatting a PowerPoint slide.
- You just spilled coffee on your client's document.
- Your colleague booked a meeting room, but you notice there aren't enough chairs for everyone.
- It looks like you need three more chairs. Ask your colleague to help you.
- You need some key data from the client ASAP.
- The client sends it all to you within 5 minutes.
- You are too sick to give your client presentation. Let your team leader know, and ask them to do your part of the presentation this afternoon.
- The next day, you hear your team leader filled in and gave a fantastic presentation.
- Your meeting is going long and it looks like you'll be a few minutes late to your lesson at The English Farm.
- You arrive at your lesson a few minutes late.
- You've sent a PowerPoint deck to be checked but just found an error, so you need to send a new version.
- Your colleague found another error in your PowerPoint deck and fixed it for you.