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International meetings

Discussion: Interrupting

Could you think of examples of interrupting others during a meeting? Especially during an international meeting!

What is the *‘right’ thing to say?

*Modal verbs:the principal English modal verbs are can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would and must.

There is a very common way to ‘soften’ what you say. It is not really to apologise but it is used to tell the listener: ‘I’m going to say or do something you might not like, so please don’t get upset’.

 Use I think or I feel

‘I feel quite strongly that we’re bringing this out too soon …’

‘I don’t think we’ve got any choice …’

Acknowledge people

Examples of polite interruptions

Meeting phrases

· I I called this meeting to …

·         Talk through the figures (money)

·       Prepared some hand-outs (paper)  versus I have sent an attachment (digital)

·         Redundancy (making the staff less/asking people to leave)

·         Can I bring you up to date here? (Informing others)

·         Heads up – to let you know important points in advance

·         Talk you through (discuss in detail)

·          The floor is yours – your opportunity to speak

·         Go ahead [give someone permission to speak]

·         Can we turn to you now?

·         Let me finish what I was saying …

·         Can I make another suggestion?

·         Can we look at another point of view?

·         Can we talk about that in a minute?

·         Do you understand the core of the problem?

Wrapping up

Watch this video (3.41 minutes) and *discuss the language used in the meeting

*make notes!