By the end of this exercise, you can disagree diplomatically and write action points with an owner, task and deadline.
Business English practice: disagree diplomatically in a meeting, choose useful meeting phrases and write clear action points with owners and deadlines.
Read the dialogue and choose the best answer to each question.
Maya: I suggest we test two remote days a week for six weeks. A short pilot would give us evidence before we decide.
Jonas: That’s a fair point. My concern is that new colleagues may feel isolated. Could we include two fixed office days instead?
Lena: I’m not sure six weeks is long enough. What if we ran the pilot for eight weeks and asked everyone for weekly feedback?
Maya: I see your point about new colleagues, Jonas, and that sounds reasonable. Let’s agree on eight weeks, with Tuesday and Thursday in the office. Jonas, could you prepare the feedback questions by Friday? Lena, will you write the pilot timetable by next Wednesday?
Jonas: Yes, I can do that.
Lena: Certainly. I’ll share it with the team.
Maya: Great. To sum up, Lena is drafting the timetable and Jonas is preparing the questions. We’ll review the feedback after eight weeks.
Choose the phrase that best achieves the goal in each situation.
Write a short email to your project colleague Alex so the team knows exactly what happens next.
Your team has agreed to pilot a new customer-feedback form for four weeks. Sam will design the form by Tuesday. Alex will send it to ten customers by Thursday and report the results at Friday’s meeting.
Review your answers below, then send them to your teacher.
Exercises A and B are auto-graded; Exercise C is teacher-graded.