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Your Ultimate Guide to: Attending a meeting in English

Writer's picture: JoanneJoanne

Updated: 2 days ago

In multinational organisations most meetings will be held in English. There are two reasons for this, firstly the attendees may comprise multiple nationalities and secondly the minutes from this meeting may be shared with others in the organisation.



As the name suggests a multinational organisation has a physical presence in a number of countries. Employees from different parts of the world will need to talk to each other and the common language for doing this is English.


"The fastest-spreading language in human history, English is spoken at a useful level by some 1.75 billion people worldwide—that’s one in every four of us." Tsedal Neeley Harvard Business Review


With this in mind, I've put together an Ultimate Guide to help you attend your next meeting in English.



 

Why is speaking English so important to a global organisation?


When you apply for a job at a global organisation the recruiting team might not be based in your country. In order to be successful you will therefore need to write your covering letter and attend an interview in English.


For hints and tips on this check out:


If you have to do this, chances are a lot of your working day will be conducted in English, including attending meetings. I understand this can be frustrating and tiring which is why I have put together some useful phrases you can use in your next meeting to get your point across.



Practical suggestions


There are a number of different tasks you will need to perform in a meeting. Here are some useful phrases to help you manage each one:


Inviting ideas or opinions

This is especially important if you are hosting the meeting with the purpose of making a decision at the end. You can use phrases such as:

"Let's go around the table and see what everyone thinks."

"Larry, do you have any ideas on how we can do this?"

"Sam, did the customer service team have any suggestions on how we could improve..."


Suggesting ideas

You have lots of good ideas you want to share, but how do you introduce them into the discussion. Try using phrases like:

"Why don't we..."

"What about..."

"The consensus from the sales team is that we should..."


Agreeing with someone

Another person in the meeting has a good idea that you agree with. Rather than just saying "I agree with Tom" you can also use phrases like:

"That's an interesting idea."

"I think Tom made a great suggestion earlier..."

"I like that idea."


Disagreeing with someone

When disagreeing with someone it's important to remain polite and respectful and not say "That's a stupid idea!". Use phrases like:

"I don't think that's a good idea because..."

"I'm not sure I agree with that opinion based on..."

"I don't think that's going to work because of..."



Checking agreement

This is important to do before a decision is made. You might think that somebody has agreed or disagreed but as there is so much conversation in a meeting and so many times an idea can go backwards and forwards it's easy to lose track. It is especially important when not everyone will be as comfortable speaking English. To check consensus try using phrases such as:

"It sounds like everyone agrees with the idea that we should....is that correct?"

"Let's have a show of hands, who is in favour of..."

"Based on our discussions I think we all agree that...have I understood everyone correctly?"


Taking a decision

At the end of the meeting it is useful to wrap up the discussion by going over the key agreements and action points. To do this you can say things like:

"OK, we have agreed to...is everyone ok with this?"

"Let's agree to talk to our teams and come back with ideas next week."

"Do you all agree that we should use the second option?"




Are you ready to get started?


There are many different purposes for holding a meeting but hopefully some of these phrases will be useful in your next conversation.



Before you attend your next meeting in English take another quick look at the above phrases. Bookmark this page for easy reference or write down the phrase from each section that fits the most with what you might like to say.


Looking for some extra speaking practice?

Click here to talk to me about Business English coaching, attending a meeting in English.







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