Business English listening/speaking skills exercises can include:
basic socializing activities
telephoning practice
common office exchanges
short role plays with colleagues, customers and clients
practice asking, requesting and providing information.
Updated 4th June 2021
Students need to be versatile and flexible when they speak English. This gap fill exercise provides a number of everyday conversations and situations . It challenges students to complete the short dialogues with the appropriate vocabulary. Or students can listen to the audio and complete the conversations.
Asking for information business English gap fill (PDF)
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This is a Business English ESL exercise to help students learn how to make polite requests in English. Students can try to complete the speech bubbles. Then they can listen to the audio and compare their answers. Or it can be used as a stand alone listening exercise.
Business English making requests (PDF)
Problems and solutions exercises make for good speaking and discussion classes. Here, students match the problems to the pictures and give solutions in answer to the questions. as above, the solutions exercise could be expanded to include all the problems shown in the pictures.
Business problems and solutions (PDF)
This is a good topic for business English students. And millennials in general are really sharp on the nuances of strategies for starting a business. Good fun!
Ideas for starting a business (PDF)
As a follow-up to the exercise above (or part of the same lesson)…. starting a business is a surefire topic for classroom dialogues.
This is a telephoning exercise for English language learners to practice using the language necessary for making business phone calls. Students listen to the audio and complete the conversation. There are 2 worksheets One is easy and one is more difficult.
Telephone delivery conversation (PDF)
This is a business English ESL exercise to help students practice common office conversations. First, brainstorm ideas for the conversations. Then students can listen to to the audio and complete the speech bubbles.
This is an elementary business English ESL listening exercise exploring the language and vocabulary used to make short conversations in various business and social situations. Student listen and complete the short conversations for each situation. Then they can compare answers.
This is a telephoning language exercise to help English language learners practice expressions and phrases used in everyday phone conversations. Students can try and complete the dialogues and then listen to the audio to check/compare their answers.
Office telephoning language exercise(PDF)
This is similar to the above but more general. It helps students become familiar with common office conversational exchanges.
Business socializing and telephoning (PDF)
This is a great contemporary topic for university students. There is no more contemporary business English topic then the “gig economy”. It’s an excellent discussion/debate topic.
The words create, produce, develop, design, invent, build, sell, provide and manufacture are often used interchangeably to describe company activities. This activity focuses on these and related words and the subtle differences between their usage.
It’s also pretty easy for students to talk about business skills as it relates to their personal preferences and abilities. The speaking section can also be expanded to include all the skills shown in the pictures.
This is a more personalized and fun exercise in which students write a conversation talking about 2 problems in their lives.
Problems and solution conversation writing (PDF)
4 Working from Home exercises incl. parts of speech and vocabulary
ESL Listening Activities Guide
8 Business English Vocabulary Exercises
10 Super Essential Academic Vocabulary Lessons
5 Cool Advertising & Branding Vocabulary & Language Exercises
5 Kinds of Collocation and Phrasal Verb Exercises
5 Describing Graphs Language Exercises
10 Jobs and Careers Vocabulary and Speaking exercises
4 Money and Finance Worksheets
10 Computing and Internet Vocabulary and Speaking Activities
5 Intercultural Body Language, Gestures and Etiquette Language Exercises
This is an elementary ESL speaking exercise for talking about problems in the office. First, students try to match the vocabulary at the bottom of the page to the pictures. They can then use that vocabulary to answer questions about the pictures. Click on the image below or the link to download the printable PDF file.
Talking about office problems (PDF)
Discussing business activities (PDF)
Elements of common work conversations (PDF)
This is a business English ESL exercise introducing some common expressions and sentences. Students need to interpret the meanings of the woman’s gestures and match the vocabulary to the pictures.
Business woman: what is she saying (PDF)
Telephoning speaking skills (PDF)
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