telephone English, Business English
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THE MEDIUM IS NOT THE MESSAGE
Telephone English vs English on the Phone
Conventional wisdom
Ask Business English teachers what they
understand by the term ‘telephone English’
and (after they’ve told you to get a life!) most
will have no difficulty reeling off a
predictable set of language functions such as
getting through, taking and leaving messages
and fixing appointments. Many will go on to
point out the importance of modal verbs
(especially
can, could
and
’ll
) and present
continuous for future arrangements. Some,
with a glint in their eye, will talk about the
great opportunity telephoning gives the
teacher to kill off at a stroke several members
of the phrasal verb family – the natural
enemy of every English language learner.
Speak up, slow down, call back, hold on, put
through, read back, ring off,
and
hang up
are
likely to be on their hitlist, even though the
last two are things you obviously do at the
end of a phone call but very rarely say.
For example, we’ve all successfully taught
even elementary learners the basics of
‘telephone English’, but some of my students
now live in terror of actually getting through to
the person they called, because they know that
that’s when the problems really start! True,
they are on firmer ground with fixing
appointments (though nowadays e-mail is a
much less laborious way of doing this), but I
question the validity of enabling lower level
learners to arrange meetings for which their
English will be hopelessly inadequate when
they attend. What are they supposed to do? Fix
up appointments for 2007 and in the meantime
hope to progress to upper intermediate?
Actually, these days many shorter meetings are
dealt with entirely on the phone and
appointments to meet face to face only made
when the teleconference fails to resolve
the issue.
You should be able to make at least 25
expressions – some very basic, others quite
complex grammatically with a number of
direct and indirect objects. Doing an activity
like this can sometimes be more useful than
using listening extracts and gapfills and the
like. Learners are prompted to recall
expressions they already know and to
generate new ones from the simple
components they are given.
Automaticity
Obviously with fixed expressions like these it
is vital for learners to be able to produce them
spontaneously and pretty much word-
perfectly when required. The use of dynamic
drilling is called for here since we cannot
expect input to become output without a
certain amount of controlled throughput.
Such, then, is the conventional view of
‘telephone English’ and a glance at most
course materials for telephoning will
reinforce it. Lost orders, bad lines and fixing
appointments with diaries tend to figure
prominently. The reason presumably being
that not only do they give telephone
expressions like
What can I do for you?,
Sorry?
and
Can you tell her I called?
an
outing, but they also naturally lead to
confusion over names, dates and catalogue
reference numbers, thus providing an ideal
context in which to review spelling aloud and
figure work.
How, therefore, can we make sure that our
learners get both a good grounding in the
rule-governed part of ‘telephone English’ and
the creative spontaneity required to do
business in English on the phone?
In
Activity 1
on page 7 (
The Hot Seat:
Elementary plus
) cut the worksheet into
information for the call receiver (Jan Carlson)
and call cards for the various callers and
distribute them amongst your class. With a
small group some people will need to make
more than one call. The call receiver should
familiarise themselves with their ‘personal
information’ and, when they are ready, sit in
the ‘hot seat’ in the middle of the class. The
callers then take turns to call up using the
utterances on their call cards. The receiver’s
job is to respond appropriately to each call in
one or two sentences and then take the next
call. Keep the pace up and leave feedback till
later. If the receiver gets confused or
‘freezes’, they should simply say ‘Sorry, can’t
hear you’ and hang up. Either pre-teach the
target expressions or wait and see what your
class comes up with and reformulate where
necessary. If your learners use their own
personal information to do the activity, it will
naturally be much more authentic, but you’ll
need to adapt the call cards accordingly.
Fixed expressions
One interesting feature of so-called
‘telephone English’ is that a relatively small
number of very simple words can be strung
together in many different combinations to
make fixed expressions. Try this experiment
with your learners if you like: how many
different telephone expressions can you make
using just the words in the box below? You
can use the words more than once, but not in
the same expression.
Communicative competence
Now, this is all well and good and there can be
no doubt that this kind of highly ritualised,
formulaic ‘telephone English’ is extremely
useful, not to say essential at lower levels. But
whilst it is a prerequisite of competence on the
phone, it can in no way be said to constitute
competence itself. ‘Telephone English’ may
help you deal with the basic medium and
mechanism of the phone, but the message you
have called to convey is a very different
matter. The medium is not the message. And as
well as ‘telephone English’ there’s also all the
other English you’ll need while on the phone.
what how when
I you me him her it that
can could ’ll called
be take leave read call
tell help do hold ask
to for in on with back
please sorry rightaway
a message minute again
Possible responses are: 1. Speaking. How
can I help you? 2. No, sorry, this is
Legend PC. 3. I’m afraid he’s in
Barcelona this week. Would you like his
number? 4. No, this is customer services.
I’ll put you back through to reception. 5.
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No, this is Jan. Tony’s just gone into a
meeting. Can I help? 6. I’m sorry, this is
Legend PC. I think you have the wrong
number. 7. He’s in a meeting. Do you
want me to page him? 8. Yes, two. Jim
and Kate both called. Kate needs to speak
to you urgently. 9. Sarah? Sorry, I think
you must have the wrong department.
Can I ask who’s calling? 10. Yeah, she
should be back from lunch. Do you want
me to try her office?
level learners) to adapt meeting roleplays to
telephone practice. Certainly, these will give
their students more to get their teeth into
when discussed on the phone. But if these
prove too complex, a basic dilemma scenario
will often suffice. For example:
getting our learners to practise speaking on
the phone in the middle of something else -
say, an e-mail writing activity.
In addition, calls themselves are often
interrupted and in
Activity 3
on page 7
(
Sorry to Interrupt: Pre-Intermediate
plus
) there is a selection of truncated
‘documents’ which the teacher can interrupt
the student with during a telephone roleplay
by asking for a signature, a quick response or
for some figures to be checked. This closely
simulates real life where the office
environment is often in a state of organised
chaos. Customising these documents to
reflect your learners’ own work situation will,
again, authenticate the activity still further.
Speaker A
You’re already a month late with
a project report and now need an extra 6
weeks to complete it. The project is your
baby and your chance for promotion. You’re
very protective.
In
Activity 2
on page 7 (
Crossed Lines: Pre-
Intermediate plus
) learners work on
memorising a slightly different selection of
high-frequency fixed expressions for use on
the phone. The worksheet can be used in a
number of ways. The sentence halves can
simply be matched up. If your learners put a
pen across the connecting lines they can test
themselves first, then remove the pen and
follow the lines to check their answers
without the immediate need for teacher
intervention. Alternatively, try folding the
worksheet in half so that the learner can only
see the first column. They then complete each
expression on a separate piece of paper,
compare with a partner and finally open out
the worksheet again to check answers.
Another option is to fold the worksheet as
before, stand it upright on the desk and put
your learners in pairs so that one can only see
the sentence beginnings and the other the
endings. They then dictate sentence halves to
each other for completion orally or in writing.
Make sure the people who got sentence
beginnings in exercise A get endings in
exercise B. With all these expressions it’s
important to spend some time on stress and
intonation afterwards.
Speaker B
Speaker A is a month late with a
project report. Phone them and suggest
bringing in someone else to help them finish
it if they can’t complete it within the next
2 weeks.
High-pressure approach
On the subject of organised chaos, a
simulation I have found to work very well
with learners who spend a lot of time on the
phone is
Activity 4
on page 7 (
Panic
Stations: Intermediate plus
). Here the
teacher collects data in the form of graphs,
charts, tables, directories etc. from authentic
sources (perhaps provided by the learners’
own company) and pastes each piece of
information onto the computer screen on the
worksheet. Two copies of each worksheet are
made – one set to be displayed as posters
around the classroom (15-20 for intermediate
groups) and one set for the teacher. After a
brief orientation period, the teacher calls up
the group using a real phone where possible
and makes urgent requests for different pieces
of information. Learners come to the phone
in relays, take notes and return to their group
to access the information within a strict time
limit. The teacher keeps piling on the
pressure, phoning back again and again,
changing priorities and generally creating as
much mayhem as the they think the group can
cope with!
With skeleton rolecards like these, however,
you may find it helpful to let learners flesh
out their roles a bit before they start. They
could also grade each other for diplomacy
and assertiveness at the end of the activity.
Outgoing calls
One of the advantages of outgoing calls is
that you can to some extent prepare them and
learners should be encouraged to have a
simple call-planner to hand – something like
an agenda:
Receiver:
Call subject:
Points to raise:
Responses:
Problem-solving
So much for the relatively restricted area of
‘telephone English’. What about ‘English on
the phone’?
Action agreed:
AOB:
At the end of the activity a score can be given
for the accuracy of the data retrieved (it’s no
good if the caller is given the wrong
information) and plenty of feedback given on
how well the group dealt with the caller
during all the preceding panic. I can promise
you, the language generated both on the
phone and off it will be nothing like
‘telephone English’! It’ll be richer, rougher
round the edges and a good deal more real.
Well, nowadays, most routine business is
done by e-mail. The phone is simply not an
efficient way of handling this. So when the
telephone does ring there’s usually a problem
on the other end of it: an unexpected delay, a
change of plan, a technical hitch, a missed
deadline, a piece of bad news. Less
commonly there’s an opportunity: an offer, an
invitation, a useful lead. Either way, if it’s
urgent, you phone. Teachers may find it more
interesting, therefore, (especially with higher
It’s sometimes a good idea to teach a few call
termination phrases as well –
I’ll let you go,
I’ll let you get on, I won’t keep you.
Getting
rid can be as important as getting through.
Incoming calls
By contrast, incoming calls tend to be
unexpected or, at least, to interrupt something
else (usually something more important).
This may suggest that we could consider
Mark Powell, Author,
In Company
(Intermediate and Upper Intermediate levels)
For Activity Cards see page 7
www.businessenglishonline.net
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The Medium is not the Message continued: Suggested Activities
Name:
Jan Carlson
Company:
Legend PC
Dept:
Customer Services
Te l :
44-1-6599010 Ext.331
Boss:
Tony White – just gone into a meeting
Colleague 1:
Carol Smith – should be back from lunch
Colleague 2:
Robert Klein – at the Barcelona office this
week tel 34 93 7713007
Call 1
Call 6
Hello. Is Jan Carlson
Ah, hello. I’m calling about
there?
the coffee cups I ordered.
Call 2
Call 7
Hello is that Legend
Jan? Kate. Where’s Tony?
Petroleum?
I need him urgently.
Call 3
Call 8
Hello, could I speak to
Hi Jan, it’s Tony. Have there
Robert Klein, please?
been any calls for me?
Call 4
Call 9
Hello? Accounts?
Hello. Could you ask
Sarah to give me a call?
Call 5
Call 10
This is Jim. Is that Tony?
Hello, Jan. Is Carol around?
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