Telephoning & Teleconferencing- Personalised Practice

Telephoning and Teleconferences- Discussion and Personalised Practice
Part One: Discussion
Discuss the questions below in the order given, writing your partner’s answers if your
teacher asks you to.
When was your last telephone conversation in English? What was it like?

How often do you telephone in English? What is your typical telephone call in English like
(topic, nationality you are speaking to, length, purpose, whether you know the person or
not, formality, etc)?

How often do you telephone in your own language? What is your typical telephone call like
(topic, nationality you are speaking to, length, purpose, whether you know the person or
not, formality, etc)?

What are the general differences between telephone calls in your own language and
telephone calls in English?

What are the difficulties of telephoning in English? What makes it not as difficult as it could
be?

What can you do to make telephoning easier?

What can you do to prepare for a telephone call?

Part Two: Personalised practice
Choose one telephone conversation that you have had in English (or are likely to have in
the future if you’ve never had one). Describe it to your partner, then roleplay it with them.
Discuss how realistic it was and how you could have improved the phone call, then
roleplay the same conversation twice more – the second time changing roles.

Part Three: Teleconferences/ Video conferences
Discuss the same questions and do the same personalised practice about your experience
of teleconferences/ video conferences.

Written by Alex Case for UsingEnglish.com © 2014