Business calls: making polite requests and taking messages

Summary

This 90-minute ESL lesson for B2 learners explores Business calls: making polite requests and taking messages through a real article. Across 10 interactive exercises, you'll develop reading comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, practical communication, speaking skills — all built around authentic English content.

What you'll practise:

• 5 key vocabulary items with definitions and usage notes
• Grammar focus: reported questions and requests with examples and practice
• Real-world phrases for dealing with technical issues on a call
• Gap-fill and cloze exercises to test vocabulary in context
• Matching exercise to connect terms with their meanings
• Error correction to sharpen grammar awareness

Lesson activities (10 exercises)

Each exercise builds on the previous one. Work through them in order for the best learning experience.

1. Warm-up — Discussion questions to activate what you already know about the topic.
2. Comprehension — Answer questions to check your understanding of the main ideas and supporting details.
3. Vocabulary — Learn key words and expressions from the article, with definitions and usage notes.
4. Matching — Connect words, phrases, or concepts to their correct counterparts.
5. Grammar — Study reported questions and requests — explanation, examples, and key rules.
6. Error correction — Find and fix the mistake in each sentence — a great grammar workout.
7. Practical English — Learn phrases for dealing with technical issues on a call — ready to use in real conversations.
8. Cloze passage — Fill in blanks within a connected text to practise vocabulary in context.
9. Discussion — Reflect on the topic and share your opinions using the language you've learned.

Vocabulary

This lesson introduces 5 key terms drawn directly from the article:

• To touch base — to make brief contact with someone, often to get or give an update.
• To follow up on — to take further action connected with something that happened earlier.
• To get cut off — to have a phone call end suddenly and unexpectedly.
• To liaise with — to communicate and cooperate with another person or department to get a job done.
• To have a bad connection — to experience poor sound quality during a call, making it hard to hear.

Grammar

This lesson focuses on reported questions and requests.

When you take a message during a business call, you often need to report what the other person said. We use reported speech to do this, changing direct questions and requests into statements. This is essential for accurately passing on information to colleagues.

Examples from the lesson:

• Direct: "When will the quarterly report be ready?" -> Reported: "He asked when the quarterly report would be ready." — Notice the direct question becomes a statement. The word order changes (subject before verb) and the modal verb 'will' shifts to 'would'.
• Direct: "Could you please call me back before 5 pm?" -> Reported: "She asked me to call her back before 5 pm." — For polite requests, we often use the structure 'ask + object + to-infinitive'. This is more concise than reporting the exact words.
• Direct: "Is the marketing director in the office today?" -> Reported: "The caller wanted to know if the marketing director was in the office today." — For 'yes/no' questions, we introduce the reported clause with 'if' or 'whether' and the verb tense shifts back (e.g., 'is' becomes 'was').

Key rules:

• In reported questions, use statement word order (subject + verb), not question inversion.
• For requests, the most common structure is 'ask + person + to + verb'.
• Remember to change pronouns, time expressions, and verb tenses where necessary.

Practical English

dealing with technical issues on a call

Bad connections and background noise can disrupt important business calls. Use these phrases to politely manage technical problems and keep the conversation on track.

Phrases you'll learn:

• "Sorry to interrupt, but you're breaking up a little." — politely flagging a sound issue.
• "I'm afraid I didn't catch that last part. Could you say it again?" — asking for repetition.
• "The connection seems a bit unstable. Shall we try turning off our video?" — suggesting a solution.
• "It sounds like we have a really bad line. Would you mind if I called you right back?" — proposing to restart the call.
• "Apologies, I think there's some background noise on my end. Let me just mute myself." — taking responsibility for a problem.