1

How to improve business phone calls

Intermediate Level:

• Listening: Vodafone’s Origins & Present

• Pronunciation: Diphthongs – phone & found

• Business Vocabulary: Phrasal Verbs – Telephone use

• Reading: Vodafone’s Future

• Grammar: Quantifiers – Much, Many, A Few, A Little, None

• Functional Language: Making a Telephone Call

• Cultural Awareness: Business Calls

• Role Play: Vodafone sells iPhone in China

www.ibeschool.com

2

INTRODUCTION: Discuss these questions: What do you know about Vodafone? Who does Vodafone sponsor? Do you know what these words mean? You will hear them in the listening exercise. Blame – acquisition - discontinue - sponsor – high profile LISTENING 1:

A spokesperson talks about Vodafone. Listen and answer these questions.

PRONUNCIATION Diphthongs – phone or found

Practice saying these words and sentences with your teacher. Shown - Though - Down - Mountain - Shout - Thrown - Outstanding - Go - Now -

Sound - Load - Found - Loan -Tone - Aloud - Phone - Home - About - Town - Know

• The loan for the town house was over 200 thousand pounds.

• I found a token for a Vodafone phone and shouted out loud.

• The hotel was outstanding, but the coast was home to thousands of mosquitoes.

1. What was Vodafone’s market valuation in 2006?

2. What were the company losses blamed on?

3. Is Vodafone profitable?

4. Who does Vodafone sponsor?

5. Where does the Vodafone name come from?

www.ibeschool.com

3

Question: Is this sentence correct? The company has many money to spend

GRAMMAR PRACTICE: Quantifiers

All, Many, Much, A Few, A Little, A lot, No

These quantifiers are used to express amounts that are not specific, but they give you a general idea of the quantity. e.g. A lot of people bought the product. There is a little money in the bank

COUNTABLE Singular Plural

UNCOUNTABLE

All the All/all (of) the Most (of the)

Many (of the) A lot of (the) A lot of (the)

Lots of (the) Several of (the)

A few (of the) Few (of the)

No No / none

All/all (of) the Most (of the) Much (of the) A lot of (the) Lots of (the)

A little (of the) Little of (the)

No / none Note: A lot of and lots of are more informal than many A lot / lots of our customers live in cities (informal). Many of our customers live in cities (formal)

Uses 1. Much, Many, A lot of / Lots of normally appear in positive sentences e.g. A lot of people work for Vodafone in our city The customers are happy most of the time. How Much and How Many are question words to ask about quantity e.g. How much does this phone cost? How many people work here? 2. A few (countable) and A little (uncountable) are often used with only e.g. There are only a few other companies as big as Vodafone There is only a little money in the bank (means: not enough) 3. Very is an intensifier often used with Few, Little and Many e.g. Very few customers came to the exhibition There is very little support for the new strategy How many calls did you make? Not very many

www.ibeschool.com

4

EXERCISE 1: Replace the underlined words in the sentences with a phrase from below: e.g. We have visited London many times

Only a few – much – all – a little – most – none

1. Every one of the customers said the new phone was good.

2. Not many of you are confident on the phone.

3. The majority of the people work until ten o’clock.

4. Not one of our clients came to the presentation.

5. We used some of the money on marketing.

6. There is not a big amount of water in the bottle.

Supplement this task with more exercises from a good grammar book.

EXERCISE 2: Speaking Practice

Think of a company and its products that you know about, and write down some

points and then discuss it using the grammar of quantifiers e.g.

Vodafone has a lot of debt

Renault makes very few luxury cars

Eurostar has many different ticket prices

None of Microsoft’s products are free

www.ibeschool.com

5

Question: Is Vodafone suffering because of the global recession? How can Vodafone save money? Where can Vodafone grow its business? Reading Exercise: read the article, and fill in the gaps with a suitable word.

Vodafone in 2009

There is a World recession. People are losing their jobs. Almost many / all the people in developed countries have a mobile phone. Is this a problem for Vodafone? The biggest mobile telecommunications group in the world reported a 15% increase in revenues for the first half of 2009. Profits for 2009 are expected to be a little / a few under $16 billion. Vodafone is doing well in no / a lot of its markets. In America, where it owns 45% of Verizon, the second-largest phone company, it increased its revenues by 50% to $12 billion. In Africa and Central Europe its service revenue increased by 35 per cent, and in the UK and India it has the 2010 licence to sell the Apple iPhone. Not all / many territories the group have performed well. Turkey and Romania, for example, have delivery and image problems, but these are smaller markets and many / no business strategy is perfect. In addition to good sales results, Vodafone has made $1 billion in cuts, and CEO Vittorio Colao said he wants to reduce costs by another $1 billion by 2012. This will involve some job losses but he wants that to be as many / few as possible. “We continue to develop a little / lot of innovative services for businesses and consumers,” he said. “We want to expand our fixed line network and we will continue to focus on the delivery of data services. This will include a mobile phone payment service.”

www.ibeschool.com

6

Introductory Question: If someone ‘hangs up on you’ is it a polite action?

BUSINESS VOCABULARY: Phrasal Verbs – Telephone Language

Match the phrasal verbs on the left with their meaning on the right and then fill in the gaps with the relevant phrasal verb in the correct tense EXERCISE 1:

1. Take down a. Connect

2. Cut off b. Wait

3. Hang up on somebody c. Disconnect

4. Put somebody through d. Terminate call with no warning

5. Put on hold e. Write the information EXERCISE 2:

1. Can I your number and call you back?

2. me to the marketing department please.

3. Sorry, the train went into a tunnel and I was .

4. Don’t , I haven’t finished speaking.

5. Yesterday I was for twenty minutes.

CULTURAL AWARENESS POINT Business Phone Calls – Etiquette

• Answering the Call

Normally, in the UK, a businessperson will answer the call with a greeting, his / her

full name and an offer to help e.g.

Good morning/afternoon, Anne/Andrew Jackson speaking, how can I help you?

• Disconnections (to be cut off or to hang up)

If a call is cut off before it is finished, the person who made the call rings back.

Hanging up with no warning is rude. DISCUSS: • How do you answer a call in your country / culture? • In pairs, one person is angry about a Vodafone

service and the other person takes the call and tries to help. Then change roles and make another call.

www.ibeschool.com

7

Focus on functional vocabulary that is normally for telephone calls.

FUNCTIONAL LANGUAGE

CHECKING & CONFIRMING INFORMATION Asking For Repetition - If you don’t hear what was said Sorry (rising intonation)

Excuse me (rising intonation)

I didn’t hear what you said, could you repeat it please?

Sorry, I missed that, could you say it again, please?

I don’t follow you

Sorry, I don’t understand what you said Correcting Information Excuse me, not 18 but 80

Sorry, it is 80 not 18

I think there’s been a mistake. It is 80 not 18

Asking for Clarification - When the speaker is not clear What do you mean exactly?

Could you explain that in more detail, please?

Could you tell me a little bit more, please?

Asking for Verification - To check you understand You did say the end of May, didn’t you?

It was $900 wasn’t it?

Are you saying that

(you tell them what you think they have said) Repeating Information - To summarize the main points What you mean is …

Just to recap …

So the main points are …

To be clear, you want …

www.ibeschool.com

8

ROLE-PLAY EXERCISE: Make the Call / Take the Call

Instructions: Divide into pairs. • Student A uses the information below and calls the receptionist: Student B. • Student B writes down the information and asks for confirmation and spelling. • Read the information back to your partner for verification • Next reverse the roles and Student B uses the information at the bottom of the

page and calls the receptionist: Student A. • Student A writes down the information and asks for confirmation and spelling. • Read the information back to your partner for verification

Student A: My name is George Jackson and I work for the Happy Apple Hotel.

Mrs. Dorothy Lovell is going to send me a contract.

This is the address to send it to: 333 Leicester Avenue, Edinburgh, Scotland. Postcode EI4 6VB

Student B: My name is Jonathan O'Shea and I work for Jaguar Coated Tools. I am calling about the conference on December the 15th in Quebec. There will be 14 delegates coming and we need tickets to be sent to: Mrs. Gemma Townly at Jaguar Coated Tools

1722 Blavington Broadway,

Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, MK9 3NZ

www.ibeschool.com

9

Lead in Question: Do you know what these words mean? You will hear them in the listening exercise.

Recession – cutting costs – emerging markets - fixed line – prosperity Listening 2: Listen and answer the questions.

ROLE-PLAY

1. How many mobile phones were in the World by 2009?

2. What had a negative impact on Vodafone’s sales?

3. What does the Chief Executive of Vodafone say is the future for Vodafone?

4. How do mobile phones bring more prosperity to a region?

5. What is the future plan for Vodafone?

COMMUNICATION EXERCISE: Divide into 2 small groups. Group 1: is marketing team for Vodafone – you want to market the iPhone in China. Group 2: is the Chinese government who wants the iPhone but wants a Chinese partner to help Vodafone. Vodafone wants to control the operation but is will accept a Chinese partner for distribution. Discuss the problem and come to a solution. Practice using Quantifiers and the vocabulary you have learnt in this lesson.

www.ibeschool.com

10

Audio-script 1 Vodafone Intermediate level Vodafone Group PLC is the largest mobile telecommunications company in the world with a market valuation in 2006 of around $170 billion. In May 2006 the company announced a loss of $28bn for 2005, the biggest loss in British corporate history. The loss was blamed on the acquisition of Mannesmann, the German mobile network, and discontinued business in Japan. However, on an operating level Vodafone is extremely profitable and made $20 billion in 2005. By 2007 Vodafone had 200 million customers in 27 markets across 5 continents. Vodafone sponsors many high profile personalities and events, including the McLaren Formula 1 team, UEFA Champions League and David Beckham. The name Vodafone comes from Voice data fone, because, the company believes voice and data services are more important than mobile phones.

Audio-script 2 – Vodafone Intermediate By 2009, there were around 4 billion mobile phones in the world and Vodafone had 330 million customers. Unfortunately, because of the global banking problems, the economies of many countries have gone into recession and this has had a negative impact on Vodafone sales. Chief executive of Vodafone, Vittorio Colao feels that cutting company costs and expanding into emerging markets is the future for the company. For example, India is Vodafone's biggest and most exciting sector in emerging markets, and it is a country where over 600 million people do not have a phone. ‘It is a country where fixed line phones are not common and mobile technology is important to the local population,’ he said. ‘And when there is more communication there is more trade, more education, and this brings more prosperity to the region.’ The future plan for Vodafone is to introduce a payment services system using mobile phone technology. The company believes that the mobile phone will soon become the new credit card.

www.ibeschool.com

11

LESSON PLAN – Vodafone – Intermediate Key objectives – to practise aural and oral Business English INTRODUCTION: Ask the students what they know about Vodafone. Teacher (T) – Students (SS) 5 mins LISTENING 1: Next tell students they are going to hear a spokesman talking about Vodafone. They need to answer the questions at the end. Play the listening and ask students the questions. (T) – (SS) 10 mins PRONUNCIATION: Ask the students to pronounce the /phone/ and /found/ words and sentences and correct any mistakes. (T) – (SS) 5 mins GRAMMAR: Go through the Grammar of Quantifiers … Much/Many and do the exercises that follow. (S) – (T) 10 mins READING: Find out if the students the lead in question. Go through the reading and gap fill exercise. (S) – (T) 10 mins BUSINESS VOCABULARY – Ask the students the lead in question and go through the exercise about telephone phrasal verbs. Engage the students in the speaking practice that follows. (S) – (T) 5 mins CULTURAL AWARENESS POINT: – read the text and discuss the cultural differences about answering the phone. (SS) – (T) 10 mins FUNCTIONAL LANGUAGE: – read the examples of repetition and clarification etc. and do the Telephone Call role-play that follows. (SS) – (T) 15 mins LISTENING 2: Go through the vocabulary questions. Tell students they are going to hear the 2nd part of the listening. Play the listening and students answer the questions (SS) – (T) 10 mins ROLE PLAY: Go through the instructions and begin the role-play. Make sure they practice the grammar and vocabulary learnt in the lesson and to try and use the case study material in their argument. Get the other students to discuss and offer feedback. (SS) – (SS) 20 mins

www.ibeschool.com

12

EXERCISE ANSWERS – Vodafone - Intermediate LISTENING 1: 1. Around $170 billion 2. The acquisition of Mannesmann, the German mobile network, and discontinued business in Japan 3. Extremely profitable. It made $20 billion in 2005 4. McClaren Formula 1 team and David Beckham 5. Voice data fone, because, the company believes voice and data services are more important than mobile phones GRAMMAR EXERCISE 1. All the customers said the new phone was good. 2. Only a few of you are confident on the phone. 3. Most of the staff work until ten o’clock. 4. None of our clients came to the presentation. 5. We used a little of the money on marketing. 6. There’s not much water in the bottle. READING EXERCISE: All – a little – a lot – all – no – few – lot BUSINESS VOCABULARY: EXERCISE1 1. Take down a. Write the information 2. Cut off b. Disconnect 3. Hang up on somebody c. Terminate call with no warning 4. Put somebody through d. Connect 5. Put on hold e. Wait EXERCISE 2: 1. Can I take down your number and call you back? 2. Put me through to the marketing department please. 3. Sorry, the train went into a tunnel and I was cut off. 4. Don’t hang up, I haven’t finished speaking. 5. Yesterday I was put on hold for twenty minutes. LISTENING 2: 1. Around 4 billion mobile phones 2. The global banking problems, and the economies of many countries have gone into recession. 3. Cutting company costs and expanding into emerging markets 4. Because more communication brings more trade, and more education. 5. To introduce a payment services system using mobile phone technology. The company believes that the mobile phone will soon become the new credit card.

www.ibeschool.com