TELEPHONE CONVERSATION

Fernanda Águila
 Grade Level: Vocational Education, Adult/Continuing Education
 Subject(s):
• Foreign Language/English Second Language
• Vocational Education/Business
 Duration: 50 minutes
 Description: Students use telephone conversation as a listening/speaking
activity to practice conversation. This lesson was originally used as part of
a Business English Conversation class (Intermediate ESL/EFL).
 Goals:
• To improve students' listening and speaking skills.
• To practice telephone conversations, job positions in a company and
greetings.
 Objectives:
• Students will be able to identify various job titles used in companies.
• Students will be able to respond to questions asked in mock telephone
conversations.
 Materials:
• prepared note cards containing different job titles found in a company
(i.e. president, general manager, CEO, sales manager, secretary,
accountant, assistant, vice-financial manager, etc.)
• Recorders.
 Procedures
 Warm-up:(10 minutes)
Students are currently learning new vocabulary about job titles and
departments within companies. During this period, students will
practice identifying the job titles through listening. First, show students
the note cards of the job titles and ask them to describe the job titles.
For example, show them sales manager and ask, "What department
does he work for?" Students will reply, "The sales and marketing
department." Then ask, "What does he do?" The students will reply,
"Sell goods/company products to the market/customers." This serves as
a check to see if students know the new vocabulary.
 Procedures
 Pre-activity: (15 minutes)
Pass out note cards to each student; everyone should have a job title.
Then demonstrate the telephone conversation practice (of course, the
opening/ending greetings of telephone conversation should be
mentioned.) First say, "Hello, this is Kimberly from ABC Inc. May I speak
to the general manager, please?" Then the student who has the job title
general manager will stand up and answer, "Yes, this is general manager
Tom speaking. May I help you?" Check to make sure all students know
their job titles and practice simple conversation for greetings.
 Procedures
 Listening/Speaking Activity: (20 minutes)
Continue to call on students as during the pre-activity, but this time add
more message information, such as checking the date/place for the
meeting, giving a telephone number, an invitation for dinner, etc.
Students should be able to get the message accurately and then
repeat/reconfirm the message to the teacher—to check for
understanding. If students don't understand or feel unclear, they can
response, "Pardon me?" or "Can you repeat again more slowly?" During
the conversation, the teacher should also note if students are using the
polite form of conversation.
 Procedures
 Conclusion/Assignment: (5 minutes)
The teacher can give students some suggestions and comments based
on the outcomes of the activities.
 Assessment
 Ask students to find a partner. Assign the task of designing their own
telephone conversation. Students should use a tape recorder to record
their conversation. Students should bring the recordings to the next
class so that they can be used for whole class listening practice. Ideas
for listening practice:

• Call General Manager: to set up the time for Monday’s meeting.

• Call Secretary: to cancel the conference for tomorrow afternoon.
• Call Security Guard: to reserve four visitors' parking spots for next
Wednesday, 9:00 a.m.
• Call Marketing Manager: to change the time schedule for presenting the
proposal in Nissan Inc.
• Call President’s Assistant: to give the president his wife's new cellular
phone number and ask him to return her call.
 Link
http://ericir.syr.edu/cgi-
bin/printlessons.cgi/Virtual/Lessons/Foreign_Language/English_Second_Languag
e/ESL0203.html