Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on teleconferences and running online meetings and conference calls in English.
With today’s technology, people don’t have to be in the same room to have a meeting. We can connect with people around the world by phone or video chat apps like Skype. Amazing, isn’t it? Until it suddenly isn’t amazing, because people don’t know who’s saying what, others are having technical difficulties, and people are leaving and joining the meeting without anyone knowing.
A good conference call requires a good facilitator. Someone to make sure everyone knows who’s in the meeting and gives everyone the chance to speak. That means facilitating introductions at the start of the meeting and encouraging quiet people to share their ideas. After all, it’s pretty easy to hide or be ignored during an online meeting.
Sometimes there are technical problems that can get the meeting off track. At those times, it’s best to ask someone else to try to solve the problem so you can continue running the meeting. And just like any meeting, the facilitator should be encouraging input from everyone, including those who join late. It’s your job to integrate those latecomers into the meeting so they can participate too.
In today’s dialog, we’ll hear an English teleconference led by Gabi. People from across the U.S. are joining the call to plan their company’s upcoming sales conference.
Listening Questions
1. What does Gabi ask people to include in their short self-introduction?
2. What problem does Gabi ask someone to help solve?
3. What does Gabi do when someone joins the meeting late?
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